Dear List,

I want to run a rsync-ing script in cron, generating a very verbose -vv rsync log in a log file. The log file should combine both stderr and stdin, which is easy:

backup.sh >>/var/log/backup.log 2>&1

However, I would like to propagate only stderr to cron - in case there has been an error, cron will mail me the assembled stderr output.

I tried the following:

$ (./backup.sh > /var/log/backup.log) 2>&1 | tee -a /var/log/backup.log

which propagates the stderr to cron, but lines written to /var/log/backup.log are out of sequence - for example if the contents of backup.sh are:

#!/bin/bash

echo "out 1" >&1 echo "out 2" >&1 echo "out 3" >&1 echo "out 4" >&1 echo "err 5" >&2 echo "out 6" >&1 echo "out 7" >&1 echo "out 8" >&1

I get in /var/log/backup.log:

out 1 out 2 out 3 out 4 out 6 out 7 out 8 err 5

I would like the lines in their initial sequence.

Do you know a shell trick or a tool that I can use to achive desired goal?

Best regards, alex