inserting system date into subject field of ssmtp email

Question

I'd like to know the syntax for inserting the current date/time into the subject line of an email sent by ssmtp.

I've got a cronjob emailing the tail of my syslog whenever the system reboots.

Here is the the cronjob:

@reboot tail -1000 /var/log/syslog | mail -s "the system rebooted, here's the syslog" address@gmail.com &> /dev/null

Is there a simple way of inserting the system date into the subject line field? I haven't found a way to add it.

Answer 1

You should be able to make it print the current date and time by inserting $(date) into your subject line string.

Try:

@reboot tail -1000 /var/log/syslog | mail -s "$(date): the system rebooted, here's the syslog" address@gmail.com &> /dev/null