I'm aware that this came up before, but I do not like the solutions suggested.

My problem is:

I run a backup script from cron which uses tar to archive a directory. I redirected stdout to a logfile, but I still get a email everytime the backup starts with the line "tar: Removing leading `/' from member names".
I think that is because this message is sent to stderr instead of stdout. I don't want to run tar with the -P option. Another solution would be to send stderr to stdout and use "grep -v ..." to weed out the line, but in that case all error messages would go to the log file. But I'd like to receive important error messages via email.
Is there a way to pipe stderr through grep without rediorecting it to stdout?

Any ideas are appreciated.

Lothar

You could ofcourse pipe it to stdout, grep the line away and pipe it back to stderr..

Heres an example:
I _think_ it should redirect stdout from the first command as normal, so it shouldnt mess up the normal flow of stdout. But, I cannot vouch for that as I havnt used the idea in a situation where stdout output was also needed.

edit:
Actually now tha I come to think of it more, that would probably indeed mess up the normal stdout output to stderr instead.. too bad

another solution would be to pipe stderr into a file instead of letting it run wild, let a tidy script go over it and mail the rest to you. That way you could add additional filters also.. (:

How can I mail something to myself via a script?

It depends on your setup, e.g. Nail can use the local sendmail for this. Example: