In case you want cron to tell you that your backup job has been finished you can use MSMTP to send you the logs for your cronjob via e-mail:
After install with apt-get install mstmp, setup aliases in your /etc/aliases file:
root: root@example.com
user: user@example.com
default: email@example.com
Then make sure your config in /etc/msmtprc looks something like this:
# Set default values for all following accounts.
defaults
port 587
tls on
tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
account gmail
host smtp.gmail.com
from <user>@gmail.com
auth on
user <user>
password <your password>
# Set a default account
account default : gmail
Then you are ready to test:
echo -e "Subject: msmtp test\nhello test." | msmtp email@arvidortwig.de
To make the finished cron job send the mail add something like the following to your /etc/crontab or crontab -e
* * * * * /scripts/backup.sh 2>&1 | msmtp youremail@provider.com