How To: Command-Line Email as Simply as Possible

[klenwell]

Update: I'm adding additional instructions for installing nail on newer versions of Ubuntu. You can use mailx as others have suggested later in the thread, but I like nail's -A option, which the instructions below depend on and for which I could not find an equivalent in mailx. I've reposted a complete 6-step guide (http://www.klenwell.com/press/2009/03/ubuntu-email-with-nail/) on my blog.

I'm copying this from my blog where the markup may be a little neater. I only wish it could be a little simpler. Link at bottom.

problem
I want to send email using the command line on my laptop Ubuntu system. Mainly for cron jobs and automated backups. I want to be able to do so without having to set up a full-fledged MTA like sendmail or exim. And I want to be able to use either my ISP email account or a Gmail account.

Seemed simple enough and it probably is for people who do this type of thing for a living. Took me all night. So hopefully this will save someone else (perhaps me again) hours of unnecessary frustration in the future.

solution
First, look at this diagram from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email#Workings. Without being able to find a simple step-by-step tutorial to guide me, the biggest problem I was having was sorting out what was my MUA, what was my MTA, and what if anything I needed to connect the two. Long story short, they are as follows:

MUA (the client): nail (you can also use mailx or mutt or what you will)
MTA (the mail server): your isp or gmail
MSA (smtp middle man): msmtp (a simple MTA that gets mail from your local MTA to your real MTA or mailhub)

step-by-step
For newer versions of Ubuntu (post-Gutsy), add Breezy archive to your repository

$ sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following lines at the bottom of the file:

# breezy repositories (added to install nail)
# see http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/ for more info
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ breezy universe

Update:

$ sudo apt-get update


Install the needed programs

$ sudo apt-get install msmtp
$ sudo apt-get install nail


Install Thawte certificate for Gmail
This is necessary (I think) for Gmail. Probably the most complicated step, though not too bad thanks to instructions here (http://laurentbois.com/2007/10/20/activemailer-using-msmtp-and-gmail/):

$ mkdir -p ~/etc/.certs
$ chmod 0700 ~/etc/.certs
$ cd ~/etc/.certs
$ wget https://www.verisign.com/support/thawte-roots.zip --no-check-certificate
$ unzip thawte-roots.zip
$ cp Thawte\ Server\ Roots/ThawtePremiumServerCA_b64.txt ThawtePremiumServerCA.crt


Configure msmtp
Replace UPPERCASE text with your personal settings

$ gedit ~/.msmtprc

This will open up an msmtp configuration file where you'll want to copy the following lines, with your correct settings, of course:

# config options: http://msmtp.sourceforge.net/doc/msmtp.html#A-user-configuration-file
defaults
logfile /tmp/msmtp.log


# isp account
account isp
auth login
host SMTP.YOURISP.COM
port 25
user YOURNAME@ISP.COM
from YOURNAME@ISP.COM
password *****


# gmail account
account gmail
auth on
host smtp.gmail.com
port 587
user YOURNAME@gmail.com
password *****
from YOURNAME@gmail.com
tls on
tls_trust_file /home/USER/etc/.certs/ThawtePremiumServerCA.crt


# set default account to use (from above)
account default : isp


Change permission on this file or msmtp will complain:

$ chmod 600 ~/.msmtprc

Configure nail

$ gedit ~/.mailrc


# set smtp for nail
# ref: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4531994&postcount=6
# docs: http://msmtp.sourceforge.net/doc/msmtp.html#Configuration-files

# isp account (default)
# $ nail -s "subject line" -a /path/file recipient@email.com < /path/body.txt
set from="YOURNAME@ISP.COM"
set sendmail="/usr/bin/msmtp"
set message-sendmail-extra-arguments="-a isp"

# gmail account
# $ nail -A gmail -s "subject line" -a /path/file recipient@email.com < /path/body.txt
account gmail {
set from="YOURNAME@gmail.com (YOURNAME)"
set sendmail="/usr/bin/msmtp"
set message-sendmail-extra-arguments="-a gmail"
}


Send test messages for both accounts

$ echo -e "testing email from the command line" > /tmp/test_email
$ nail -s "isp test" YOURNAME@gmail.com < /tmp/test_email
$ nail -A gmail -s "gmail test" YOURNAME@gmail.com < /tmp/test_email


Check your gmail account and you should have two new messages -- one from that account and one from your ISP account. To check your log:

$ gedit /tmp/msmtp.log

Hope this helps someone. I know I could have used it!
Original source: http://phosphorusandlime.blogspot.com/2008/05/ubuntu-command-line-email.html

[andrew.46]

Hi,

Great guide!!

Have you considered in your own setup using mutt rather than nail? There are many guides to using this more fully featured program but in blatant self-promotion I post my own here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=565326
http://www.andrews-corner.org/mutt.html

The second link uses msmtp as you have in your guide, a great program for sure. Anyway thanks for making the effort to put this together, nail has always been a bit of a mystery to me and it is good to see a working config.

Andrew

[klenwell]

Great guide!!

Have you considered in your own setup using mutt rather than nail? There are many guides to using this more fully featured program but in blatant self-promotion I post my own here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=565326
http://www.andrews-corner.org/mutt.html


Thanks, Andrew. At one point in my many false starts, I installed mutt and even came across your guide (which is very well done). Mutt is just a little more than I needed in this case.


I have formerly been an advocate for the simple MTA ssmtp, which some would call a Mail Sending Agent (MSA).

Ha! Just the term I was looking for! I knew it must have its own TLA.

Tom

[hazica]

Thanks for this simple and straightforward tutorial mate. I have been looking for something like this for a long time.

There is, however, one addendum I'd like to make for all the Hardy users out there. It appears that nail is now known as heirloom-mailx in Hardy. Don't fret, though, because it can still be found in the Hardy repositories; just install heirloom-mailx instead of nail:
Replace

sudo apt-get install nail
with

sudo apt-get install heirloom-mailx

Also, when you test the mail sending function, you have to replace

nail -A gmail -s "gmail test" USERNAME@gmail.com < /tmp/test_email
with

mailx -A gmail -s "gmail test" USERNAME@gmail.com < /tmp/test_email

Keep up the good work mate, even if it means you have to sacrifice other Friday nights. I know that puking your guts out in some dark alley can be quite entertaining, but the community comes first, right? :D

[HJB]

Tnx, but I cant find a way to use mailx to send files as attachments to gmail?
If tried piping through uuencode and mpack but no go.
Any help please
Im using kubuntu 8.04 kde 4

[klenwell]

Tnx, but I cant find a way to use mailx to send files as attachments to gmail?
If tried piping through uuencode and mpack but no go.
Any help please
Im using kubuntu 8.04 kde 4

As a proof of concept, the following worked in nail:


nail -s "isp test" -a /tmp/test_email klenwell@gmail.com < /tmp/test_email

Google puts some restrictions on the type of files it will deliver so try with a simple case first. Also note that this guide is for nail (mailx-heirloom), so you may need to adjust your config file for mailx.

I'm not much help on the subject beyond this, but I imagine more details would help anyone who wished to assist.

[mwgrient]

Thank you klenwell for sharing this info with us. And thanks all for commenting it.
Saves me a lot of time and having fun with my commandline...

[John Little]

There is, however, one addendum I'd like to make for all the Hardy users out there. It appears that nail is now known as heirloom-mailx in Hardy. Don't fret, though, because it can still be found in the Hardy repositories; just install heirloom-mailx instead of nail:
Replace

sudo apt-get install nail
with

sudo apt-get install heirloom-mailx


Thanks, hazica, but my Hardy doesn't see heirloom-mailx, and my mailx doesn't have a -A option, and doesn't understand the mutiple account stuff in the given .mailrc. I wonder if I'm missing a repository that you've used?

[stinger30au]

I'm copying this from my blog where the markup may be a little neater. I only wish it could be a little simpler. Link at bottom.
Hope this helps someone. I know I could have used it!




thanks for the info!!!!

[r.stiltskin]

I can't find heirloom-mailx either. Anybody know where to find it?

[andrew.46]

Hi,

Can you confirm that gmail has changed to the Equifax Secure CA now after the problem of the expired cert?

Andrew

[DFord425]

I can't find heirloom-mailx either. Anybody know where to find it?

I recently found this and i am trying to do the same thing. I cannot find heirloom-mailx or nail. I tried to use the apt-get install command for both. Also i am trying to modify the msmtrpc file but i cant find it. Does anyone know where i find it.

[r.stiltskin]

I cannot find heirloom-mailx or nail. I tried to use the apt-get install command for both. Also i am trying to modify the msmtrpc file but i cant find it. Does anyone know where i find it.

You don't need heirloom-mailx or nail. It turned out that mailx (included in the Ubuntu distro) works fine. As for msmtprc -- you create it.

If you need more info:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
USING MAIL + MSMTP TO SEND EMAILS FROM A TERMINAL PROMPT OR FROM A SCRIPT:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
mail (/usr/bin/mail) is provided by mailx or smail (smail requires mailx and uucp), and msmtp provides the interface to the isp that forwards the mail. So:
~$ sudo apt-get install msmtp smail uucp
(mailx will be installed as a dependency)

In your home directory, create a ~/.mailrc file containing just:

set sendmail=/usr/bin/msmtp


Create a config file for msmtp; mine is ~/.msmtprc but I think a systemwide /etc/msmtprc file would work as well. For my Verizon account this file consists of:

# .msmtprc ##configuration file for msmtp

#account verizon
host outgoing.verizon.net
from [from address to appear on the email]
auth login
tls off
user [username]@verizon.net
password [************]

#account default : verizon

notes:
- The lines "account verizon" and "account default : verizon" are commented out -- they seem to be unnecessary if only 1 account is listed in the file.
- The [from address ...] can be whatever you want to appear on the email; it does not have to be your isp account address.
- The line "auth login" is to be copied exactly. This "login" is NOT your username.
- You'll have to determine the appropriate entries for the host, auth, and tls lines, depending on your isp.


To send an email manually from a terminal prompt, type a first line consisting of the command, the subject and one or more recipient addresses (no commas):
~$ mail -s "the subject line" [first recipient] [second recipient] [...]followed by <enter>.
Then type the body of the message. This can be on multiple lines (<enter> will not terminate the message).
Finally, to terminate the message, type <enter> at the end of the last message line, and then type ctrl-D at the beginning of the next line.

To send an email from, say, a perl script, include a line similar to this in the script:

system("echo \"Body of the message\" | mail -s \"Subject line\" recipient1@address1 recipient2@address2");

[mhourahine]

Thanks for this info and for the helpful comments afterwards. This saved me alot of time.

heirloom-mailx seems to be just called mailx now


sudo apt-get install mailx

should do the trick

[mitchhb]

Thank you for the detailed directions. I think I have followed them carefully and have installed mailx and mstmp.

But when I try to send mail, I get the error message "msmtp: no recipients given". Any suggestions about what mistake I might have made? Thanks for any help.

[r.stiltskin]

I don't know -- I can't find any way to produce that error message.

[mitchhb]

Update: I was able to send mail using msmtp directly but see the error message when trying to send using mailx. So there is some issue between mails and msmtp.

[mitchhb]

Resolved: I had been using mailx from the mailutils package. After I installed it from mailx, everything works.

[djmm]

Fantastic. Just what I've been looking for. Thanks for documenting this. This is something that should definitely be incorporated into the distro too - simple out of the box smtp at least.

While these instructions work great for $USER, is anyone using a modified set for a system-wide solution or is that not possible given that, say, using gmail requires specific user settings?

I'm asking because I only have 3 users on the machine and then root. I could set this up for the other 3 users and root as well, but wondering if there's any configuration that can be shared and what the system-level file equivalents are.

[r.stiltskin]

I haven't tried it but I believe you can replace the ~/.mailrc with /etc/mail.rc and replace ~/.msmtprc with /etc/msmtprc and that should work system-wide if all users share the same isp settings.

[boris464]

Great stuff!

At least for the gmail account the fumbling with the certificates can be avoided with


sudo apt-get install ca-certificates

and changing the trust file in the .mstmp file to:


tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/Thawte_Premium_Server_CA.pem

[JohnJBBrown]

Hi

I have a small file server at home running Ubuntu 8.04 and I set up SMART hard disk monitoring following the instructions at:
http://blog.shadypixel.com/monitoring-hard-drive-health-on-linux-with-smartmontools/

I followed this how-to to set up mail using mailx and msmtp so that the server can send me automatically SMART warnings to an address at an ISP, however I cannot resolve the following problem:

If I own the /home/USER/.msmtprc file, I can send email from the command line, but the smartd daemon cannot and in /var/log/daemon there is the following message: /etc/smartmontools/run.d/10mail: send-mail: /home/USER/.msmtprc: must be owned by you Can't send mail: sendmail process failed

And the other way round: if I chown the /home/USER/.msmtprc to root, the daemon can send the mail, but I can't.

Any idea what I do wrong?

Thanks.

[dcstar]

Hi

I have a small file server at home running Ubuntu 8.04 and I set up SMART hard disk monitoring following the instructions at:
http://blog.shadypixel.com/monitoring-hard-drive-health-on-linux-with-smartmontools/

I followed this how-to to set up mail using mailx and msmtp so that the server can send me automatically SMART warnings to an address at an ISP, however I cannot resolve the following problem:
.........

I do not know why people just don't install the postfix package, it requires virtually no configuration for immediately sending outgoing mail and it just works (just select "Internet" on install or run this later):


dpkg-reconfigure postfix

The only manual thing I have to do is set the mail forwarder to my ISP (a trivial task) because I get allocated dynamic IP addresses that are on Spam lists so some mail is blocked if sent directly from my connection.

[zouhair]

Can't seem to find ThawtePremiumServerCA_b64.txt in the downloaded zip file, you can find it here (http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~suriya/UT-wireless/ThawtePremiumServerCA_b64.txt).

Thanks for this tutorial, very much appreciated.

zouhair

[jdmonroe]

Looks like the Thwart certs are no longer working.

Made the following changes:

renamed all mail servers to googlemail.com

Also downloaded the following cert file
https://www.geotrust.com/resources/root_certificates/certificates/Equifax_Secure_Certificate_Authority.cer


Renamed it to
EquifaxSecureCertificateAuthority.crt

Command line to send the mail has changed also. "mailx" instead of "nail"

Success!

[charliehubuntu]

send-mail: account default not found: no configuration file available