We can automate different tasks in Linux including generating reports, monitoring processes, automating backups, submitting Spark jobs, and many more. There are times when jobs fail and a report needs to be generated and sent through email. We can use the Linux mail command to accomplish this task either on the command line or through bash script, Perl, and Python.

When we want to send email from a Linux command line or bash script, we commonly use the mail or sendmail command. Before using this command, we need to have a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server configured in our system, as they rely on an SMTP server to send email.

An SMTP server is a computer program or service that allows for sending and receiving email messages. Developers need to follow their organization’s policies and guidelines for email usage, depending upon where email is being sent.

Sending Emails on Linux

We use the mail command to send emails on Linux.

mail -s “Hello world” <email_address>

Sending email with body

We can use the below commands to add the content to the body of the mail.

echo “Email Body.” | mail -s “Hello world” <email_address>
Example: 
echo "Testing email" |mail -s "This is Nitendra Tech Blog" [email protected]

Explanation:

• echo is used to create the body of the email
• | is a pipe symbol that us used to send the output of echo to the mail command.
• -s is used to specify the subject of the email.
• [email protected] is the recipient’s email address

Sending Emails with content from a file

If we want to email the content of the log file, we can use the below command t

mail -s “Testing Email from a File” [email protected] < /home/nitendratech/testfile.txt

Sending an email with CC and BCC

We can use the below options along with the mail command to add cc and bcc in the email.

-s <subject>: It is the subject of the mail
-c <email_address>:  It will send a carbon copy to this “email address”, or CC
-b <email_address>: It will send a blind carbon copy to this “email-address”, or BCC

Here’s how you might use these options:

echo “Welcome to this Blog ” | mail -s “Test Email with cc and bcc” [email protected] -c [email protected] -b [email protected]