sending maili from linux cli

[Rodolfo J. Paiz]

At 11:10 3/17/2004, you wrote:
>I want to send email from my system (from the command
>line) to outside addresses.
>*Without* and internal sendmail server...

Why? The default installation of Sendmail on recent versions of Red Hat 
Linux and Fedora Core Linux listen *only* on the loopback address 
(127.0.0.1) making it available *only* to programs running on your own box. 
This also provides for resending if the recipient is down, and other 
conveniences available only with an SMTP server... and provides no security 
risk since no services are offered to the outside.

If you want to shut down Sendmail, of course you can do so. But be aware 
that you are not generating a *security-related* benefit... just saving 
some memory and a few CPU cycles here and there.

>I want it to send mail using my ISP's smtp server.
>
>i.e, if I type:
>
>  mail me at mymailaccount.com
>
>it should just send/forward the mail to that address,
>simple right?

I don't think the mail program allows for the use of external SMTP servers. 
However, you can check by entering the command "which mail"; this will give 
you the full path to the executable command you are running. Then do "rpm 
-qf /usr/bin/mailx" (or whatever the file is) and RPM will tell you what 
package contains that file. Then do "rpm -qd mailx" (or whatever the 
package is) and RPM will tell you what documentation is included with that 
package.

Finally, go read the documentation. Should take you three or four seconds 
to run through those commands.

>I'm not using Pine/Xwindows or anything, just plain
>command line mail.

Note that the "mail" command is also a mailreader program *just like* Pine 
or Mutt. It will let you read or send mail, both interactively and via the 
command line. I believe you can do the same things with Pine or Mutt (and 
Mutt is the recommended alternative), plus you get additional capabilities 
like IMAP and remote SMTP servers just like you want. So perhaps, if you 
really get a benefit (in saving memory, or whatever) by shutting down 
Sendmail, then switching to Mutt may the best choice for you.


-- 
Rodolfo J. Paiz
rpaiz at simpaticus.com
http://www.simpaticus.com