cronwrap: Another cure for Cron's email problem

• ability to send emails ONLY when errors happen. cron sends an email if a command outputs anything (which leads to massive spamming). Another problem with cron is that only stdout is sent (makes debugging difficult).
• ability to send emails if a command runs for too long.

Source: cronwrap on github

Installing cronwrap

$ sudo easy_install cronwrap
$ cronwrap -h

Usage

Will email a timeout alert to cron@my_domain.com:

$ cronwrap -c "sleep 2" -t "1s" -e cron@my_domain.com

Will email an error alert to cron@my_domain.com, since the command crashes:

$ cronwrap -c "blah" -e cron@my_domain.com

Will not email any reports since it's a successful run:

$ cronwrap -c "ls" -e cron@my_domain.com

Will email a successful report to cron@my_domain.com, because verbosity is turned on:

$ cronwrap -c "ls" -e cron@my_domain.com -v

Help and usage:

$ cronwrap -h
usage: cronwrap [-h] [-c CMD] [-e EMAILS] [-t TIME] [-v [VERBOSE]]

A cron job wrapper that wraps jobs and enables better error reproting and
command timeouts.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -c CMD, --cmd CMD     Run a command. Could be `cronwrap -c "ls -la"`.
  -e EMAILS, --emails EMAILS
                        Email following users if the command crashes or
                        exceeds timeout. Could be `cronwrap -e
                        "johndoe@mail.com, marcy@mail.com"`. Uses system's
                        `mail` to send emails. If no command (cmd) is set a
                        test email is sent.
  -t TIME, --time TIME  Set the maxium running time.If this time is passed an
                        alert email will be sent.The command will keep running
                        even if maxium running time is exceeded.The default is
                        1 hour `-t 1h`. Possible values include: `-t 2h`,`-t
                        2m`, `-t 30s`.
  -v [VERBOSE], --verbose [VERBOSE]
                        Will send an email / print to stdout on succefull run.

Hope you find it useful and happy hacking!

PS:

I would like to say happy Whyday! Time flies so fast and I can't believe it's one year since he left.

I wrote about him on 21. august 2009 ( _why's way of living ). His influence lives on even if he is gone — a true legend!