Clogger (Cron Logger)

Overview

Clogger is a small utility script designed to manage and log cron jobs. It acts as a wrapper around standard Linux commands, capturing stdout and stderr into timestamped daily log files.

🚀 Features

• Interactive Menu: Manage jobs via a visual menu (List, Add, Edit, Remove).
• Dual Mode: Works as both an interactive manager and a command-line wrapper.
• Output Control: Choose to capture full command output (stdout/stderr) or run silently (logging only start/finish status).
• Timestamping: Injects [YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS] into every line of output.
• Daily Rotation & Retention: Automatically rotates daily logs and deletes files older than 30 days.
• Root Awareness: When run as root, allows specifying a different owner for the generated log files (e.g., user:group), defaulting to the SUDO_USER.

🛠️ Installation

1. Clone the repo:

   git clone https://github.com/Pavdig/clogger.git
   cd clogger

2. Make executable:

   chmod +x cron_logger.sh

3. Run:

   ./cron_logger.sh

📖 Usage

1. Interactive Mode (Recommended)

Run the script without arguments to open the menu. This allows you to manage schedules visually.

./cron_logger.sh

• List: View all cron jobs managed by Clogger.
• Add: Step-by-step wizard to create a new job, including options for log capturing.
• Edit: Modify existing jobs (preserves current values for easy editing).
• Remove: Safely delete jobs from crontab.

2. Wrapper Mode (Standard)

Used internally by cron, but can be run manually.

./cron_logger.sh <LOG_PATH_PREFIX> "<COMMAND>" [USER:GROUP] [CAPTURE_OUTPUT]

• Arguments:

  • LOG_PATH_PREFIX: Path to log directory + filename prefix.
  • COMMAND: The actual command to run.
  • USER:GROUP: (Optional) Ownership of the log file.
  • CAPTURE_OUTPUT: (Optional) true (default) or false.

• Example (Verbose):

  ./cron_logger.sh /home/user/logs/backup "tar -czf..." user:user true

• Example (Silent - only log start/finish):

  ./cron_logger.sh /home/user/logs/backup "tar -czf..." user:user false

3. Failsafe Mode (Quick)

If you only provide a command, Clogger saves logs to a default folder in the current directory.

./cron_logger.sh "<COMMAND>"

🛟 Help

To see a quick usage guide:

./cron_logger.sh --help

📂 Configuration

The log retention period is defined in the script header:

RETENTION_DAYS=30

Requirements

• Bash
• Awk
• Crontab