Skip to main content

nail, mailx, and Gmail

UPDATED 2017-11-11

I'm setting up a web server for my business and I need to email error messages and notifications to myself so I can keep track of things, but I don't have a sendmail or postfix installation for my domain and DO NOT want to futz with that since it's just overkill for what I need.

Thankfully, a minimal mail user agent is installed with Mageia (and likely in many more variants of Linux as part of their base package) called mailx (this was formerly called nail, which explains the names of a few files).

The system-wide configuration file is located at /etc/nail.rc. Each user can have a ~/.nailrc file, but since my server is running headless, I put everything in /etc/nail.rc. As well, you can put per-user modifications in the more common ~/.mailrc.

There seems to be a general problem for people getting mailx to work with Gmail. Here's what I did:

1. Make sure that POP is enabled in your Gmail Settings.

2. Add the following to /etc/nail.rc:

#configure Gmail SMTP

set smtp-use-starttls

set from=USERNAME@gmail.com

set smtp=smtp.gmail.com:587

set smtp-auth-user=USERNAME@gmail.com

set auth-login=USERNAME

set smtp-auth-password=PASSWORD

NOTE: Substitute your own account name for USERNAME and your own password for PASSWORD.

NOTE: Gmail does not use the standard port 25 for SMTP. As you can see above, I used port 587 for Gmail; port 465 may work for other mail servers.

To test if you have been successful:

# echo testing | mail -v yourusername@maildomain.com

Success is silent, simply returning you to the command line.

Adding that -v directive puts nail in verbose mode and may give a clue as to why a connection is failing if it is --- or announce it's success. If there are no errors, you'll see a log of transactions between you and the GMail server, then you'll be returned to the command prompt and you'll find a message with the subject "test" in your Gmail mailbox.

Note that I'm not using mailx to read mail - I'm not that much of a masochist. That's why I didn't use the IMAP option of mail.

Some apps require postfix to be installed as a dependency. If you don't need it, uninstall it with
$ sudo rpm -e --nodeps postfix

NOTE:
You may find it necessary to "fix" the default mail application that your system uses. Mageia insists on making it 'sendmail' by default and not allowing the choice of /bin/mail through /etc/alternatives. You can fix it yourself by looking here:
MaximumHoyt: Managing /etc/alternatives

NOTE_1: 
There are over 1000 views of this article and no comments. Did you find it useful?

NOTE_2:
I filed a bug report for this  on 2015-05-22 and it is still open.

NOTE_3:
Lately, I have not been able to send email through Gmail, getting a message to see  https://support.google.com/mail/answer/78754

NOTE_4:
Google is now blocking mail/nail as an "unsecure app". You need to disable this security feature for this to work.

Comments

Flippi said…
Thanks for the details, Gmail settings works first time !

Popular posts from this blog

DOS4GW.EXE Version 2.01a and Alternative DOS Extenders

DOS4GW.EXE The Tenberry DOS extender DOS4GW.EXE was used by many early DOS games. I still enjoy playing many of these games and DOS4GW.EXE is usable with DOSBox , so they can be played on Linux. However, the version of DOS4GW.EXE that was included with the game was whatever was current at the time. The most recent version that includes many bugfixes that possibly affected the games when used with DOSBox have been fixed in the latest version, 2.01a. It's not free at US$49, but you can downloaded it here . Simply substitute it for whatever version of DOS4GW.EXE your game provided and enjoy the bug-fixed goodness. Tenberry also makes a "high-performance" "pro" version of DOS4GW.EXE, but it costs $300. I think that they could sell quite a few of these to hobby users (since, you know, DOS is dead) for US$5. Open Souce to the Rescue There are better performing, free and Open Source alternatives available and worth a look. DPMI Explained Let's unders

Return to Castle Wolfenstein for Modern Linux

Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a first-person shooter originally released on November 19, 2001. The game, like many other classic games, is available at GOG.com and costs only US$5.99. iortcw for Linux Don't bother with old and crusty Linux binaries offered by idsoft; they are problematic and it's painful to use them on a modern Linux. Fortunately for us, there are more modern GPL-licensed Linux binaries available for 32- and 64-bit systems as well as high resolution textures packages. The project at GitHub provides source code that can also be compiled for MS Windows using MinGW. iortcw for Windows and Mac You can download pre-compiled binaries for 32- and 64-bit Linux, MS Windows and Mac from here . Let's put our files in /usr/local/games/rtcw . As root, extract the downloaded .ZIP file for your architecture to  /usr/local/games/rtcw . All we are missing are the game data files. I purchased them from GOG.com. The game installer downloaded from GOG.com can be

Unreal Tournament GOTY/UT99 for Modern Linux

Released on November 16, 1999, Unreal Tournament (also known as UT99) is an arena first-person shooter for Multiplayer on-line competition or you can play against bots off-line. It features several game types, with more details provided at Wikipedia . The game was re-released on February 25, 2000 as Unreal Tournament Game of the Year Edition (GOTY) which included the three bonus packs released previously and additional mods, or game modifiers that had become popular. It is the GOTY version that is available from STEAM or  GOG.com . The GOG version for Windows installs in Linux and plays well using WINE , PlayOnLinux or Codeweaver's Crossover . There is a Linux binary available in two versions, one for the original game and one for the GOTY edition . Also provided at that site is the Official Bonus Pack with a Linux installer. All these Linux installers are created with makeself . There are some issues using such a crusty old Linux binary. Let's see why getting a Lin