mailutils in script versus command line

alabamatoy

6/15/23, 3:32 PM

The following works fine as expected from command line:

mail < /home/incoming/mailprocoutput.txt -s "Message Processing results..." -r [email protected] [email protected]

cat filename pipe mail etc also works fine on command line. But either method results in an empty message body when used in a shell script:

#!/bin/bash
# This is to send an email from the mailproc python script with the results of message processing

timestamp=$( date +%T )
curDate=$( date +"%m-%d-%y" )

logger "Mailproc has run at $timestamp on $curDate, sending response back to the creator..."

mail < /home/incoming/mailprocoutput.txt -s "Message Processing results..." -r [email protected] [email protected]

exit

What am I doing wrong? Ubuntu 18.04, GNU mailutils version 3.4

0 + 0

mail

bash

mailutils

FedKad

6/15/23, 3:35 PM

Are the command line and the script being run from *the same user*? Do you get any _stderr_ output from the script?

waltinator

6/15/23, 4:21 PM

Always paste your script into `https://shellcheck.net`, a syntax checker, or install `shellcheck` locally. Make using `shellcheck` part of your development process.

waltinator

6/15/23, 4:25 PM

Are you running the script at system startup, via `cron`, `at`, or `batch`? Look at the results of `echo "=== id ===";id;echo "=== set ===";set;echo "=== env ===";env | sort;echo "=== alias ===";alias` in each of your environments.

alabamatoy

6/15/23, 5:20 PM

@FedKad apparently it is indeed a user issue. The script runs under user incoming and indeed the command line cat-to-pipe-to-mail does not work for that user, but works for root. So I have a user rights issue.

alabamatoy

6/15/23, 5:31 PM

su username then attempt to cat file and I get nothing. the file is 0644 username:username So is there something I have to do to allow the user to have rights to cat something which is shown as owned by that user? Befuddled, I am.

FedKad

6/16/23, 10:08 AM

I would redirect the `stderr` output _of the whole script_ to some writable location like `2>/tmp/mymail.err` to see what the error is.

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: mailutils in script versus command line

TH: mailutils ในสคริปต์กับบรรทัดคำสั่ง

RO: mailutils în script versus linia de comandă

RU: mailutils в сценарии по сравнению с командной строкой

VI: mailutils trong tập lệnh so với dòng lệnh

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