After any automation or scripting task is complete, I am sure some of them would need to email the output or alert to your mailbox.
Linux does provide a few basic tools/utilities to cater to that requirement such as mailx or sendmail. However, their capabilities are limited to sending emails in text. But the need of the hour, if I may say so, is to have formatted emails with tables, highlighting and underlining words, attachments, the whole shebang!
In other words, emails should be sent in HTML format which can have all these features and much more.
Though there are methods available to send emails using sendmail or mailx (using uuencode etc.,) they are quite cumbersome and convoluted.
That's where "sendemail" utility comes in. It can send html emails so easily and with attachments as well.
The software is described as "a lightweight tool written in Perl for sending SMTP email from the console".
Some flavours of Linux provide it as a package (like Ubuntu, Kali Linux etc.).
Download it from here or here.
It's a simple utility with easily understandable options but you can read more on sendemail from Kali Linux and Ubuntu.
$ ./sendEmail
sendEmail-1.56 by Brandon Zehm <caspian@dotconf.net>
Synopsis: sendEmail -f ADDRESS [options]
Required:
-f ADDRESS from (sender) email address
* At least one recipient required via -t, -cc, or -bcc
* Message body required via -m, STDIN, or -o message-file=FILE
Common:
-t ADDRESS [ADDR ...] to email address(es)
-u SUBJECT message subject
-m MESSAGE message body
-s SERVER[:PORT] smtp mail relay, default is localhost:25
Optional:
-a FILE [FILE ...] file attachment(s)
-cc ADDRESS [ADDR ...] cc email address(es)
-bcc ADDRESS [ADDR ...] bcc email address(es)
-xu USERNAME username for SMTP authentication
-xp PASSWORD password for SMTP authentication
Paranormal:
-b BINDADDR[:PORT] local host bind address
-l LOGFILE log to the specified file
-v verbosity, use multiple times for greater effect
-q be quiet (i.e. no STDOUT output)
-o NAME=VALUE advanced options, for details try: --help misc
-o message-content-type=<auto|text|html>
-o message-file=FILE -o message-format=raw
-o message-header=HEADER -o message-charset=CHARSET
-o reply-to=ADDRESS -o timeout=SECONDS
-o username=USERNAME -o password=PASSWORD
-o tls=<auto|yes|no> -o fqdn=FQDN
Help:
--help the helpful overview you're reading now
--help addressing explain addressing and related options
--help message explain message body input and related options
--help networking explain -s, -b, etc
--help output explain logging and other output options
--help misc explain -o options, TLS, SMTP auth, and more
Some of the options:
TEXT EMAIL
sendEmail -t "<TO_EMAIL>" -f "<FROM>" -u "<SUBJECT>" [-cc "<EMAIL_IN_CC>" -bcc "<EMAIL_IN_BCC>"] -o message-file="<INPUT_FILE_NAME>"
OR
sendEmail -t "<TO_EMAIL>" -f "<FROM>" -u "<SUBJECT>" [-cc "<EMAIL_IN_CC>" -bcc "<EMAIL_IN_BCC>"] -m "<MESSAGE_BODY>"
HTML EMAIL (FORMATTED EMAIL)
sendEmail -t "<TO_EMAIL>" -f "<FROM>" -u "<SUBJECT>" [-cc "<EMAIL_IN_CC>" -bcc "<EMAIL_IN_BCC>"] -o message-content-type=html -o message-file="<INPUT_HTML_FILE_NAME>"
HTML EMAIL WITH ATTACHMENTS
sendEmail -t "<TO_EMAIL>" -f "<FROM>" -u "<SUBJECT>" [-cc "<EMAIL_IN_CC>" -bcc "<EMAIL_IN_BCC>"] -o message-content-type=html -o message-file="<INPUT_FILE_NAME>" -a "<FILE_TO_BE_ATTACHED>"
Well, happy emailing!
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