First thing is first. This file will take place as sort of a FAQ sheet, because I already know what questions will be asked.
A: Type the following in a shell:
git clone --recursive git@github.com:deanproxy/eMail.git
A: eMail is a program I designed that will send email via the command line
to remote smtp servers or use 'sendmail' internally, and fully interact with
GNUPG to encrypt and sign your e-mails, so you decide to do so...
You can get GNUPG at: http://www.gnupg.org
A: Just do this as root:
./configure
make
make install
A: the executable is called 'email' and is installed in a directory that is under the prefix or bindir specified during the ./configure of email. If you choose to specify a prefix during configure, it will go under $bindir. Which, by default, is an offset of $prefix/bin. If you specify --bindir then the binary will be put in $bindir.
If you do not specify a directory prefix during configure, then it will go under /usr/local/bin/email. The configuration files are installed by default in /usr/local/etc/email. However, if you specify the --sysconfdir option during ./configure, then the configuration files will go in $sysconfdir. Please view ./configure --help
A: Well, first thing you should do, is configure this email client. You will have the configuration file in /usr/local/etc/email/email.conf Some less important options are not set (address_book, save_sent_mail, temp_dir reply_to, signature_file, signature_divide) but you can easily set these by hand and they are not needed to properly run email.
You will see it has a few options you must set to your environment.
SMTP_SERVER:Please specify your smtp server name, or IP address here
SMTP_PORT:Please specify your smtp servers port number for use
MY_NAME:Please specify your Name here
MY_EMAIL:Please specify your email address here
REPLY_TO:Specify a seperate reply to address here
SIGNATURE_FILE:Specify your signature file
ADDRESS_BOOK:Where to find your address book file
SAVE_SENT_MAIL:What directory to save the email.sent file to
TEMP_DIR:Specify where to store temporary files
GPG_BIN:Specify where the gpg binary is located.
GPG_PASS:Optional passphrase for gpg.
SMTP_AUTH:LOGIN or PLAIN are supported SMTP AUTH types
SMTP_AUTH_USER:Your SMTP AUTH username
SMTP_AUTH_PASS:Your SMTP AUTH Password
USE_TLS:Boolean (true/false) to use TLS/SSL
VCARD:Specify a vcard to attach to each message
SMTP_SERVER can be either a remote SMTP servers fully qualified domain name, or an IP address. You may also opt to use sendmail internally instead of sending via remote SMTP servers. To do this you just put the path to the sendmail binary and any options you would like to use with sendmail (Use -t) in the place of the smtp server name... HINT: If you would like to send emails to people on your local box (i.e. djones@localhost ), then you must use the sendmail binary.
When you are specifying file paths, you can use the tilde wildcard as you could in the shell to specify your home directory. Example: ~/.email.conf would mean /home/user/.email.conf to the email program.
Once you are done here, you can leave your email in /usr/local/etc/email/email.conf or the directory you specified during the configure with --sysconfdir=... for a global configuration, or in your local home directory as ~/.email.conf for a personal configuration. Personal configs override global configs.
You can get online help by using the --help option with email and specifying the command line option you need help with. Example: email --help encrypt
If you use the -encrypt or -sign option, you MUST have GNUPG installed on your system. email uses gpg to encrypt the email to the FIRST email recipient
Example:
email -s "This is the subject" -encrypt dean@somedomain.org
In that example, I would be sending the email to dean@somedomain.org and gpg would encrypt it with the key of dean@somedomain.org
You can use -high-priority ( or -o ) to send your message in a high priority matter. In MS Outlook you will see a little ! mark next to the letter so that the recipient will see that the message is high priority!
You can send a message in one of two ways:
The first way is to already have a message ready to send. Say if I have a file named this.txt and I want to send it to dean@somedomain.org. I can redirect this file to the email program in one of two ways.
Example below:
cat this.txt | email -s "Sending this.txt to you" dean@somedomain.org
or
email -s "Sending this.txt to you" dean@somedomain.org < this.txt
If you want to create a message, you will need to do two things here.
First set the environment variable "EDITOR" to your favorite editor.
Example:
export EDITOR=vi
Please use your favorite editor in place of vi.
Now all you have to do is execute the example below:
Example:
email -s "Subject" dean@somedomain.org
This will open up your favorite editor and let you write a email to dean@somedomain.org email will default to vi if you do not set EDITOR.
You can send to multiple recipients with email. All you have to do is put commas between the email addresses you want the message to be sent to.
Example below:
dean@somedomain.org,another@domain.com,you@domain.com
Here are some more examples below:
Example: the below command will send a message that is encrypted with dean@somedomain.org key
email -s "my email to you" -encrypt dean@somedomain.org,software@cleancode.org
Example: the example will sign the message directed to it.
email -s "signed message" -sign dean@somedomain.org < secret_stuff.txt
Example: This will send to multiple recipients
email -s "To all of you" dean@somedomain.org,you@domain.com,me@cleancode.org
Example: Set message to high priority
email -s "High priority email" -high-priority dean@somedomain.org
Example: Send message with 2 attachements
email -s "here you go..." -attach file -attach file2 dean@somedomain.org
Example: Add headers to the message
email -s "New Message" --header "X-My-Header: Stuff" \ --header "X-Another-Header: More Stuff" dean@somedomain.org
A: Yes, we do.
Look in email.conf and edit the signature variables as needed.
If you're wondering what a signature divider is, it's the little thingy that divides your email message from the signature.
Usually it's '---' (Default)
Also, you can specify wild cards in the signature file.
%c = Formated time, date, timezone ( looks like the output of 'date' )
%t = Time only ( US Standard format )
%d = Date Only ( US Standard format )
%v = Version ( For us folks who want to endorse 'email' )
%h = Host type (ex. Linux 2.2.19 i686 )
%f = Prints output from the 'fortune(6)' command
%% = Prints a % mark
Your sig could look like this:
---
This message was sent: %c
This would end up looking like:
This message was sent: Thu Dec 13 04:54:52 PM EST 2001
A: Set up your email.conf file to point to your very own address book.
There is a template in the email source directory that you can view to set up your own address book. The format should be as below:
Any single name to email translation will have to have a 'single:' token before it:
single: Software = software@yourmomshouse.org
single: Dean = dean@somedomain.org
single: "Full Name" = someone@somedomain.org
Any group name to email translation will have to have a 'group:' token before it:
With groups, you can only use the Names of your single statements above... Format below:
group: Both = Software,Dean
See the email.address.template file for more information
A: YES! We now support attachments with email!
Simply specify the files you want attached to your email by specifying the --attach option, with a list of files delemited by commas. All files will be encoded with base64 and attached with the appropriate MIME headings.
Example:
email -s Attachment --attach file dean@somedomain.org
# Multiple files
email -s Attachments --attach file1 --attach file2 dean@somedomain.org
A: Yes! Email does SMTP AUTH. You will need to set a few options in the email.conf file. SMTP_AUTH, SMTP_AUTH_USER and SMTP_AUTH_PASS. If you want to know more about this, please view the email manual page 'man email'.
A: Yes, send an email at http://deanproxy.com/contact/ and ask how, or just clone it with git (see above on how to do that) and start coding and committing!
A: Because 'mailx' won't send to remote smtp servers and I didn't have access to sendmail.
I needed something that would communicate with Remote smtp servers and encrypt my messages on the fly instead of taking numerous steps to do so.
A: Well, despite popular belief, it stands for "Encrypted Mail" Not "Electronic Mail"
My initial purpose was to make e-mail easier to send via command line and encrypt it with out taking all the damn steps 'mailx' makes you take! Sorry mailx!
A: Dean Jones - Main developer
That's about it so far.
I hope you like the program eMail.
If you have any questions, bugs, or concerns please use: