sending mail with mailutils

Entropy1024 · 09-03-2016, 09:53 AM

I have installed mailutils to enable me to send emails via the terminal. After install I tried the following:

Code:

mail -s "Hello Friend" myelail@gmail.com

I returned on the Cc and then added some text for the body then pressed CTRL+D to send. I was then at the prompt again with no success or failure message, however no email either. I was a bit suspicious of it just working without any SMTP setting etc being configured. So then I tried the following:

Code:

~ sudo apt-get install ssmtp
~ sudo vim /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf
Uncomment FromLineOverride=YES by deleting the #
Added the following to the file:
AuthUser=<user>@gmail.com
AuthPass=Your-Gmail-Password
mailhub=smtp.gmail.com:587
UseSTARTTLS=YES

Tried sending again and still no email sent.
Do you know why the mail command is failing and how I correct it?
Many thanks
Tim

bathory · 09-03-2016, 12:31 PM

Quote:

Tried sending again and still no email sent.
Do you know why the mail command is failing and how I correct it?

You should take a look at the mail logs (usually located at /var/log/maillog, or /var/log/mail) to see what happens.

Regards

Emerson · 09-03-2016, 12:36 PM

Your mail can be rejected if you do not have PTR record.

Entropy1024 · 09-04-2016, 03:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emerson

Your mail can be rejected if you do not have PTR record.

Whats PTR record?

Entropy1024 · 09-04-2016, 03:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bathory

You should take a look at the mail logs (usually located at /var/log/maillog, or /var/log/mail) to see what happens.

Regards

Unfortunately there are no mail related logs under /var/log/ would they be anywhere else?

bathory · 09-04-2016, 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Entropy1024

Unfortunately there are no mail related logs under /var/log/ would they be anywhere else?

I don't think so, but you should read you distro's documentation.
Anyways, since you've installed ssmtp, try the following:

Code:

ssmtp myelail@gmail.com < /path/to/somefile.txt