How to attach a file using mail command on Linux?

Viewed 321810

I'm on a server running a Linux shell. I need to mail a simple file to a recipient. How to do this, prefereably using only the mail command?

UPDATE: got a good solution, using mutt instead:

$ echo | mutt -a syslogs.tar.gz admin@domain.org
13 Answers
$ echo | mutt -a syslogs.tar.gz admin@domain.org

But it uses mutt, not mail (or mailx).

mailx might help as well. From the mailx man page:

-a file
     Attach the given file to the message.

Pretty easy, right?

My answer needs base64 in addition to mail, but some uuencode versions can also do base64 with -m, or you can forget about mime and use the plain uuencode output...

   FROM=me@mydomain.com
   TO=someone@mydomain.com
   SUBJECT="Auto emailed"
   MIME="application/x-gzip"  # Adjust this to the proper mime-type of file
   FILE=somefile.tar.gz
   ENCODING=base64  
   boundary="---my-unlikely-text-for-mime-boundary---$$--" 

   (cat <<EOF
    From: $FROM
    To: $REPORT_DEST
    Subject: $SUBJECT
    Date: $(date +"%a, %b %e %Y %T %z")
    Mime-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="$boundary"
    Content-Disposition: inline

    --$boundary
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
    Content-Disposition: inline

    This email has attached the file

    --$boundary
    Content-Type: $MIME;name="$FILE"
    Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="$FILE"
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: $ENCODING

    EOF
    base64 $FILE
    echo ""
    echo "--$boundary" ) | mail

The following is a decent solution across Unix/Linux installations, that does not rely on any unusual program features. This supports a multi-line message body, multiple attachments, and all the other typical features of mailx.

Unfortunately, it does not fit on a single line.

#!/bin/ksh

# Get the date stamp for temporary files
DT_STAMP=`date +'%C%y%m%d%H%M%S'`

# Create a multi-line body
echo "here you put the message body
which can be split across multiple lines!
woohoo!
" > body-${DT_STAMP}.mail

# Add several attachments
uuencode File1.pdf File1.pdf >  attachments-${DT_STAMP}.mail
uuencode File2.pdf File2.pdf >> attachments-${DT_STAMP}.mail

# Put everything together and send it off!
cat body-${DT_STAMP}.mail attachments-${DT_STAMP}.mail > out-${DT_STAMP}.mail
mailx -s "here you put the message subject" nobody@test-address.com < out-${DT_STAMP}.mail

# Clean up temporary files
rm body-${DT_STAMP}.mail
rm attachments-${DT_STAMP}.mail
rm out-${DT_STAMP}.mail
Related