[Leaplist] CLI mail

[John Simpson]

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On 2008-11-06, at 1744, Gray Frost wrote:
>
> I have always thought it would be nice when I am using a CLI  
> terminal that I
> could mail a file to someone directly with a simple mail type  
> command from
> the command line.

it is handy, yes.


>  I downloaded and installed "mutt".  Now I don't no diddly
> about mail servers and how to configure it to work with my current  
> mail
> server so it does not do what I was hoping it would because I don't  
> know
> what the heck I am doing :(   I can compose a mail, attach files but  
> ummm I
> can't get it to go anywhere from there.  I am missing something or  
> lots of
> somethings!
>
> 1) Is using mutt what I want to do?

it's one of several command-line MUAs (mail user agents, the "mail  
program" on your workstation. contrast with MTA, mail transport agent,  
the "mail server" software which actually moves message from one  
machine to another.)

> 2) do I need set up some sort of mail server that mutt connects to  
> or do I
> somehow configure a file to let it know what to use to make it happen.

you do need an MTA of some kind, yes.

most command-line programs will either try to connect to localhost  
port 25/tcp and use SMTP to hand the message to whatever MTA you may  
be running on the machine, some will run "/usr/sbin/sendmail" or "/usr/ 
lib/sendmail" instead. most of them can also be configured to use some  
other method- either SMTP to a different IP/port number, or command- 
line submission with a custom command line.

looking at the documentation on http://www.mutt.org/ i can see how to  
configure a different command line program for sending mail, but  
nowhere to set an SMTP server address.

you may want to look into a program called "ssmtp". it's a minimal  
SMTP client program whose command line is structured to work as an  
almost transparent replacement for sendmail, but it doesn't have a  
local queue- when you run it, it connects to a "smarthost" and  
delivers your message immediately. if the delivery fails, ssmtp  
returns an error code.

it's in the debian repositories, but the original maintainer seems to  
have abandoned it, and nobody has really stepped up to claim  
"ownership" of it. it does work though- i'm running debian on a  
buffalo linkstation (a linux-based NAS device, hacked to use a custom  
boot-loader and running the powerpc version of debian) and it uses  
ssmtp to deliver all of its outbound mail (which is just things like  
cron output.)


> 3) in my readings I came across loads of mail server, MTA, mail
> looking-doing stuff that seemed far more complex than I want to do  
> just to
> send a mail file from a command line.

again, it depends on the machine and what MTA, if any, it happens to  
be running. there is no one method which can be considered reliable  
for every machine in the world.

spend some time on http://www.mutt.org/ and write a "~/.muttrc" file  
with your preferred settings... then copy that file to a USB stick and  
carry it with you, so if you're using some other machine, you can copy  
it into place, run mutt and do your thing with email, then remove it  
from that machine if needed.


> 4) am I dreaming?

i'm writing this at 1.15am, so i guess it's possible...


- --------------------------------------------------------
| John M. Simpson  --  KG4ZOW  --  Programmer At Large |
| http://www.jms1.net/                 <jms1 at jms1.net> |
- --------------------------------------------------------
|   Hope for America  --  http://www.ronpaul2008.com/  |
- --------------------------------------------------------





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