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-rw-r--r-- | _tils/2020-09-04-send-emails-using-the-command-line-for-fun-and-profit.md | 76 | ||||
-rw-r--r-- | spelling/en.txt | 1 | ||||
-rw-r--r-- | spelling/international.txt | 1 |
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diff --git a/_tils/2020-09-04-send-emails-using-the-command-line-for-fun-and-profit.md b/_tils/2020-09-04-send-emails-using-the-command-line-for-fun-and-profit.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f930a08 --- /dev/null +++ b/_tils/2020-09-04-send-emails-using-the-command-line-for-fun-and-profit.md @@ -0,0 +1,76 @@ +--- +title: Send emails using the command line for fun and profit! +date: 2020-09-04 +layout: til +lang: en +ref: send-emails-using-the-command-line-for-fun-and-profit +--- +Here are a few reasons why: + +1. send yourself and other people notification of cronjobs, scripts runs, CI + jobs, etc. + +2. leverage the POSIX pipe `|`, and pipe emails away! + +3. because you can. + +Reason 3 is the fun part, reasons 1 and 2 are the profit part. + +First [install and configure SSMTP][ssmtp] for using, say, Gmail as the email +server: + +```shell +# file /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf +FromLineOverride=YES +MailHub=smtp.gmail.com:587 +UseSTARTTLS=YES +UseTLS=YES +rewriteDomain=gmail.com +root=username@gmail.com +AuthUser=username +AuthPass=password +``` + +Now install [GNU Mailutils][gnu-mailutils] (`sudo apt-get install mailutils` or the +equivalent on your OS), and send yourself your first email: + +```shell +echo body | mail -aFrom:email@example.com email@example.com -s subject +``` + +And that's about it, you've got mail. Here are some more places where it might +be applicable: + +```shell +# report a backup cronjob, attaching logs +set -e + +finish() { + status=$? + if [[ $status = 0 ]]; then + STATUS="SUCCESS (status $status)" + else + STATUS="FAILURE (status $status)" + fi + + mail user@example.com \ + -s "Backup job report on $(hostname): ${STATUS}" \ + --content-type 'text/plain; charset=utf-8' \ + -A"$LOG_FILE" <<< 'The log report is in the attachment.' +} +trap finish EXIT + +do-long-backup-cmd-here + +# share the output of a cmd with someone +some-program | mail someone@example.com -s "The weird logs that I was talking about" +``` + +...and so on. + +You may consider adding a `alias mail='mail -aFrom:email@example.com'` so you +don't keep re-entering the "From: " part. + +[ssmtp]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SSMTP +[gnu-mailutils]: https://mailutils.org/ +[forwarding-wiki-section]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SSMTP#Forward_to_a_Gmail_mail_server diff --git a/spelling/en.txt b/spelling/en.txt index 1b5fdf8..0a72143 100644 --- a/spelling/en.txt +++ b/spelling/en.txt @@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ aren autocommit backend couldn +cronjobs curation declaratively decrypting diff --git a/spelling/international.txt b/spelling/international.txt index 533d84c..127ebd7 100644 --- a/spelling/international.txt +++ b/spelling/international.txt @@ -35,6 +35,7 @@ L1 LaTeX Lerna LilyPond +Mailutils Matroska Mentat Merkle |