I need to send an email with a binary attachment from the command line in a non interactive manner. I managed to do so with "mutt" but not with "mail".

I read something about encoding the attachment before sending it with "mail" because it can't handle binary content or something like that.

I would like to use "mail" if possible due to technical reasons I won't go into right now.
My questions are:

- Can "mail" send an attachment?
- Can "mail" send a binary attachment?
- If it can send a binary attachment, does it encode it (changing the actual file data)?
- The recepients are *NOT* unix mail clients. Can the attachments be read by them?


The binary attachment is a zip file of several other files.
Please provide command line examples.

I have nail rather than mail, so I'm not sure if it works the same....try:
mail -a /path/to/file recipient

you have all the answers:

man nail, or man mail

I've managed to send an attachment with mail using:

zip data.zip data.txt test.sh | uuencode data.zip | mail yonatan@il.nlayers.com -s "Subject goes here"

but the attachment cannot be opened. It is always corrupt.

I know I can use other tools but the problem is we have a ghost from which the OS is installed. It has the minimum software installed in order to run Redhat 9.
Therefore, using new tools which aren't in the current installation will require a new ghost which I'm trying to avoid.

Hi,

You might be better off trying something like mutt or metamail.
If you're bent on using "mail", then, you'll have to construct the mail, it's headers and everything else yourself.

Try these links:
http://www.shelldorado.com/articles/...tachments.html
http://www.panix.com/~kylet/unix-att.html

Arvind