Linux terminal is one of the coolest tools I’ve ever come across. If you are also a fan of the terminal, and are a Gmail user, you should like this article.
Note: I’ve tested these steps on Ubuntu 12.04 and Fedora 16.
Security certificate
Before proceeding, we need Gmail’s security certificate on our system. Why? Gmail sends encrypted data over SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) for security; this certificate is necessary for encryption of data.
Ideally, you should have the file Equifax_Secure_CA.crt under /usr/share/ca-certificates/mozilla/. If you do, you’re ready to move on. If you don’t have it, steps 6 & 7 at http://www.chrisstreeter.com/archive/2009/04/305/gmail-imap-backup-with-mbsync-on-ubuntu may help you. Set the tls_trust_file parameter (in msmtp configuration, described below) to the path of the certificate file.
Installation
We need to install two packages–msmtp (a simple and easy-to-use SMTP client), and mailx (a utility program to send and receive emails). In a terminal, run the appropriate command for your distro; for systems supporting deb packages (e.g. Debian, Ubuntu, LinuxMint etc.), use sudo apt-get install msmtp heirloom-mailx; for systems supporting RPM packages (e.g. RedHat, Fedora etc.), use sudo yum install msmtp mailx.
Configuring msmtp
We need to create an msmtp configuration file—create a file named .msmtprc in your home directory, and open it in your favourite editor. Copy the following code and paste it in the file.
# Gmail account starts # account name which must be unique for each account account gmail1 auth on #Gmail SMTP host name host smtp.gmail.com port 587 #sets Transport Layer Security on tls on # location of tls certificate file for Gmail (change this parameter if your certificate file is stored at some other location in your File-system) tls_trust_file /usr/share/ca-certificates/mozilla/Equifax_Secure_CA.crt #your email id here (e.g. abc@gmail.com) user YOUR_EMAIL_ID #your password here password YOUR_PASSWORD #email id of the sender that is you again from YOUR_EMAIL_ID # Gmail account end #So we have added one account. Similarly we can add more accounts by repeating and modifying above code for each new account. Make sure you give unique name to each account. #set default account to be used when no account is specified (Not necessary for single account) account default: gmail1
Don’t forget to replace the capitalised words with values specific to your account. Save and close the file. To get msmtp to work properly, we need to set proper permissions on this file, with the command chmod 600 ~/.msmtprc in the terminal. This makes the file’s contents viewable by only your account and root.
Configuring mailx
To configure mailx, we need to create another configuration file, ~/.mailrc. The following code goes in that file:
set from="YOUR_EMAIL_ID" #your email id here set sendmail="/usr/bin/msmtp" #location of msmtp's binary executable set message-sendmail-extra-arguments="-a gmail1" #additional arguments to msmtp goes here (optional) (-a indicates account name to be used to send mails)
Again replace capitalised words with values specific to your account. Save and close .mailrc. Now you are all set to send your first mail from the terminal.
Note: The .msmtprc and .mailrc files in the user’s home directory means they are user configuration files. Each user of the system who wants to send emails from the terminal will have to create his/her own configuration files in his home directory. The same files can be created as system configuration files, in the /etc directory, if all users on the system are sharing one Gmail account. I would personally prefer user configuration files, because I want to keep my personal Gmail login information confidential.
Sending your first email
To send your first mail, run mailx RECIPIENT_EMAIL_ID (here, replace RECIPIENT_EMAIL_ID with the actual email address to send your mail (e.g. xyz@gmail.com). You will be prompted to enter Subject and Body of the mail. Once you’re done typing the body of the message, press Enter and Ctrl+D to send the mail. If you don’t receive any error message on terminal then your mail is sent successfully.
Useful mailx arguments
Here are some command-line switches to mailx that you may find useful.
-s: Specify a subject (e.g. mailx -s “subject line” RECIPIENT_EMAIL_ID)
-a: Add an attachments (e.g. mailx -a PATH RECIPIENT_EMAIL_ID) (Replace PATH with the full path to the file you want to attach.)
You can explore more arguments in the mailx manual page (run man mailx).
One more trick: you can redirect the contents of a file as the body of the mail with:
mailx -s "subject line" RECIPIENT_EMAIL_ID < /path/body.txt
Rolling back
If you want to undo the above experimentation, delete the configuration files (rm ~/.mailrc ~/.msmtprc) and remove the packages with the appropriate command for your system—for systems supporting DEB packages, sudo apt-get remove msmtp heirloom-mailx and for systems supporting RPM packages,
sudo yum remove msmtp mailx.
Kind of new.
how can I use it behind proxy ??
Hi ..sorry for the late reply buddy….I’m not getting your exact question …can you please elaborate a little more ….
I mean, I m behind proxy server, so how can I configure to work behind it ?
I tried, but no success. ‘msmtp’ don’t provide proxy setting
export HTTP_PROXY=http://username:pass@yourip : portno
in .bashrc for global settings if you want to set up it for your profile
then .bash_profile file
otherwise find out for setting proxy for terminal on google , not a big issue
I tried this earlier, this doest’t work
why not you releasing the application of mac operating system in magzines.
suppose we add two gmail accounts then which account will be used to send mail
Have look at the last line of the msmtprc file..It’s “account default: gmail1″…So when you have added two accounts, msmtp will use account specified in default parameter(In this case gmail1)….Note that gmail1 is the name of the first account specified on line 3 by account parameter….”account gmail1″…
Hi, I don’t want to store my password as plain text in a file!. Can I enter password on terminal when I send mail?
Good Article
nope its not working… i am behind proxy exported http_proxy. but still its not working…
Hi deepak …Are you getting any error message which might help debug d problem ??
I am receiving this error message:
[udit@localhost ~]$ send-mail: cannot set X509 trust file /usr/share/ca-certificates/mozilla/Equifax_Secure_CA.crt for TLS session: Error while reading file.
send-mail: could not send mail (account default from /home/udit/.msmtprc)
Hi udit…I think you have problem with permissions of the file…Fire this command, it should fix the problem.:
“sudo chmod 644 /usr/share/ca-certificates/mozilla/Equifax_Secure_CA.crt”
Nice! Many thanks. FYI, though, if you send to abc@gmail.com and your ‘user’ is abc@gmail.com then mail goes into the sent folder :-) Looks like you either need to send to non-gmail account or have two gmail accounts. Just a note.
Thanks a lot for the commands. I’m being able to send emails via mailx, but it’s somehow not showing any new mail of my inbox.
Can you detect what’s the problem?
mailx command will by default show system mailbox of current user…. So if you want to check your gmail inbox using mailx then fire this command:
“mailx -f imaps://username@imap.gmail.com”
replace “username” by your gmail username…
Nice article. I just wanted to add a comment that instead of rm ~/.msmtprc. If people want to remove it they should use “shred” command for the safety of password written in text file.
Very nice! Works fine here! Thanks from Brazil!
can I install this on a VPS? will WordPress and fail2ban be able to use it to send me notification ???
easy would be using sendEmail.pl file from http://caspian.dotconf.net/menu/Software/SendEmail/ example as below
sendEmail
-o tls=yes -f YourEmail@gmail.com -t SomeoneYoureEmailing@domain.com -s
smtp.gmail.com:587 -xu YourEmail@gmail.com -xp YOURPASSWORD -u “Hello
from sendEmail” -m “How are you? I’m testing sendEmail from the command
line.”