How to check the creation status of a tar archive?

Question

linux

Part of my backup script creates a tarball of the content I want to backup. The question actually is, how can you embed a check on the status of creating an archive? What came to my mind is checking the exit code:

/bin/tar -czvf $BACKUP $CONTENT >> $LOG
if [ $? != 0 ]; then
    cat $LOG | mail -s "$SITE backup failure!" $EMAIL
fi

But I very often receive letters with a log of creating an archive, in which there are no errors, i.e. the listing of files shows that all files were successfully packed into the archive. Any ideas?

Answer 1

/bin/tar -czvf $BACKUP $CONTENT >> $LOG
I very often get emails with a log of creating an archive that does not contain errors

maybe because you didn't stderr to the same file: &>> $LOG, something like that?

Answer 2

/bin/tar -czvf $BACKUP $CONTENT || mail -s "$SITE backup failure!" $EMAIL
www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/ops.html#ORREF