Sending email from CLI on linux with attachment

Sending email from CLI on linux with attachment

Email clients to be used:

nail
email - http://email.cleancode.org/
mutt

These is a quick guide on how to send email via Linux CLI, with attachement and can be run as cron job.

On Mandriva:

Install nail

urpmi nail

Now, to send an email with attachment, the command will be

nail -s test -a file-to-be-attached.tar.gz user@email.com

where:
-s = subject
-a = attached file

or see manpage of nail for more commands man nail

After you hit the enter doing that command, it will wait for you to type a message and end with . (dot) so that it will execute and exit. It will not work when intended as cron jobs, so we have to change that command.. see below

echo "this is a little message" | nail -s test -a file-to-be-attached.tar.gz user@email.com

It will now send the email with attached file without prompting you to write a message.

Enabling to send email with attachment, we can write a little script and run it as cron job.

On Centos: ( I did not find a package "nail" on centos so the alternative, which also a good one is "email")

Download "email" from http://email.cleancode.org/?pid=download. Choose the right package for your distro, if RPM, download it then install:

rpm -ivh email.xxx.rp

then edit /etc/email.conf

send email with attched file with the command below

email -s "test" -b -f sendername -a file.tar.gz user@emailme.com

where:
-s = subject
-b = sending blank email
-f = sender's name
-a = attached file

Ohhh...! I realized that doing above with mutt is also possible, the command should be like below:

echo "this is a test" | mutt -a file-2-attach.tar.gz user-email@domain.tld -s my subject

Since mutt works, I dont need to install the mentioned package above.. email