sendmail: passing subject from shell script

Question

i am using a template to send an html file in the body of an email. now what i want to do is to pass the SUBJECT of the email via command like in the shell script.

My html file looks like this:

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: subject will change
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
<html>
this is test email body
</html>

bash script:

email=/usr/sbin/sendmail
report=/opt/html_report.html
template=/opt/email.template

$email -t < $final_report.html

open to suggestions; actually the html file and the header (first four lines) are merged using cat. the email header is saved as a template in a file and merged everytime a new html report is generated. — Zuntoo
– Zuntoo, Commented Jul 27, 2018 at 12:34
So where does the header come from currently? You could either use sed to translate the subject to what you want, or just use echo to write out the 4 header lines direct from the shell script. — Gem Taylor
– Gem Taylor, Commented Jul 27, 2018 at 12:43
can you demonstrate a bit; what i understand: echo [email protected] echo From: [email protected] echo Subject: subject will change echo Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" — Zuntoo
– Zuntoo, Commented Jul 27, 2018 at 12:48
echo To: test@test,com > final.html then echo From: noreply@test,com >> final.html etc. But sendmail is probably not the program you are looking for... — Gem Taylor
– Gem Taylor, Commented Jul 27, 2018 at 13:22

Don't Panic · Accepted Answer · 2020-11-16 15:06:00Z

2

I'm not sure the program sendmail is the one you want to use here. From the sendmail man page:

Sendmail is not intended as a user interface routine; other programs provide user-friendly front ends; sendmail is used only to deliver pre-formatted messages.

You probably want to use /bin/mail like this:

$ mail -s 'insert subject here' [email protected] < /opt/b2bpiv/email.template

Typing man mail or mail --help should list all the command-line options you'll need.

edited Nov 16, 2020 at 15:06

Don't Panic

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answered Jul 27, 2018 at 12:48

ineedjava

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4 Comments

Zuntoo Over a year ago

is there an option to send html document in the body; i am taking a look as well on the help. thanks.

ineedjava Over a year ago

Since you're trying to do this from bash, your html file really only needs the <html> contents. Subject, To, and From are handled by /bin/mail. the content file can contain any text you want.

Zuntoo Over a year ago

mail -a "Content-type: text/html" -s "subject" [email protected] < /opt/report.html Content-type: text/html: No such file or directory with -s it sends the report as txt.

ineedjava Over a year ago

My version of the 'mail' command uses -a for attachments, and it looks like yours is the same (hence the 'No such file or directory') . I usually only use command line mail for text-only stuff, but you might find that mutt (another command line email client) will do what you need. See Wakaru44's answer to stackoverflow.com/questions/24010230/mailx-send-html-message

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