I would like to use a terminal based mail client for my e-mail activities. I've been suggested to use alpine for it. But how do I configure it in Ubuntu to read my gmail mails?
We have a server, we are using this for backups and other cronjobs. I would like to send mail to the users when one of their cronjobs or backups has ended. Is it possible to do this if I don't have a domain name?
As a result of a long-running cron job, I have over 1,000 messages in my user's mailbox. What's the easiest way to delete them?
What is the Ubuntu way for system administrators to receive system notifications, which typically take the form of e-mail sent to the root account?
Examples of such notifications are the output of cron jobs, or degraded RAID notifications.
On a pretty much default Ubuntu 10.04 installation, I can't find any way that anything happens to root's mail other than being deposited in /var/mail/root. How are users supposed to 1. discover it and 2. read it as it arrives?
I observe that on a warty, the installer added root: myusername to /etc/aliases. So back then the user who installed the system if (s)he read the local mail. So there seems to have been a regression somewhere along the way. Still this was not a complete solution, because Ubuntu users can't be expected to be aware that they have local mail and should set up their mail client to read it.
ADDED: given current replies, a server user should be able to cope, provided he's aware of the issue. Fair enough. But consider J. Random Desktop User, who doesn't know how to use a command line, and only knows how to click the mailbox icon to read his mail. How can he be notified that his system wants to tell him something? (Allow a one-time intervention by a more competent user if that's unavoidable.)
I have a couple of cron jobs that sometimes produce error output and would like to get a notification in my "real" email account, since I don't use my user's mailbox in my Ubuntu laptop, but cron (or is it postfix maybe) keeps trying to email the local root account.
I know I can add the MAILTO variable to the crontab:
ricardo@ricardo-laptop:~$ sudo crontab -l
[email protected]
# m h dom mon dow command
*/5 * * * * /home/ricardo/mrtg/cfg/run.sh
But it doesn't seem to pay any attention to it
I also tried adding my email to the /etc/aliases file and running newaliases
ricardo@ricardo-laptop:~$ cat /etc/aliases
# See man 5 aliases for format
postmaster: root
root: [email protected]
ricardo: [email protected]
still, whenever cron wants to send an email it's still sending it to [email protected]:
ricardo@ricardo-laptop:/var/log$ tail mail.log
Aug 3 16:25:01 ricardo-laptop postfix/pickup[2002]: D985B310: uid=0 from=<root>
Aug 3 16:25:01 ricardo-laptop postfix/cleanup[4117]: D985B310: message-id=<20100803192501.D985B310@ricardo-laptop>
Aug 3 16:25:01 ricardo-laptop postfix/qmgr[2003]: D985B310: from=<[email protected]>, size=762, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Aug 3 16:25:03 ricardo-laptop postfix/smtp[4120]: D985B310: to=<[email protected]>, orig_to=<root>, relay=smtp.gmail.com[74.125.157.109]:25, delay=1.5, delays=0.38/0.02/0.9/0.18, dsn=5.7.0, status=bounced (host smtp.gmail.com[74.125.157.109] said: 530 5.7.0 Must issue a STARTTLS command first. d1sm12275173anc.19 (in reply to MAIL FROM command))
Any suggestions? I'm running Ubuntu 10.04, with everything up-to-date