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Misc: Sending attachments from command line
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:Title:        Misc: Sending attachments from command line
:Author:       Douglas O'Leary <dkoleary@olearycomputers.com>
:Description:  Misc: Sending attachments from command line
:Date created: 02/2001
:Date updated: 08/2010
:Disclaimer:   Standard: Use the information that follows at your own risk.  If you screw up a system, don't blame it on me...

The outline below shows how to send html and/or text files as attachments to 
mail and it works. I had problems, recently, getting it to work with gzip'ed 
tarballs. The attachment would come through, but it would be corrupted - 
winzip hated it. I have a suspicion it's the antiquated version of uuencode 
that comes with HPUX.

After quite a bit of searching, I found mpack on one of the hp porting 
centers. This guy's much simpler than the process below. The command line 
looks like::

   mpack -s ${subject} ${file} ${recipient}

It's got some limitations; doesn't appear to support any method of changing 
the sendor name (similar to -r arg to mailx command). But, it does what it 
does very well; have to say I'm impressed

One of the limitations is that I'm running this crap on hpux. That tends to 
have a limited subset of the normal gnu or freeware utilities. Other OSes 
would probably do well with mutt or some of the other solutions I saw via 
web searches

If you want to go hard core, the mime format for sending normal html or text 
based messages as attachments is as follows::

   (
   cat << eof
   From: root@omniserv.joe-blow.com
   To: doleary@joe-blow.com
   Subject: Omnireport: ${Date}
   Mime-Version: 1.0
   Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="i_hart_dkoleary"
   --${Bound}
   
   This is a test of the emergency broadcasting system.
   This is only a test.
   
   Had this been an actual emergency, you'd be instructed to 
   kiss your ass goodbye.
   
   This was a test.
   
   --${Bound}
   Content-Type: text/plain; name="omnirpt_${Date_ext}.html"; charset=US-ASCII
   Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="omnirpt_${Date_ext}.html"
   Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
   eof
   
   cat ${Tmp}
   
   echo "--${Bound}"
   
   ) | sendmail -t -v

Obviously, there are LOTS of alternatives to the scripting; however, its' the 
mime format that's important. Things of note:

#. To: Multiple addresses should be separated by commas.
#. Bounday entires are defined in the first content-type line.
#. Bounday entries in the text start with the initial -- (dash dash).
#. Content-Disposition: attachment; makes the text the attachment.
#. filename="omnirpt_${Date_ext}.html" gives the attachment the filename on 
   the remote side.
#. sendmail -t causes sendmail to read the recipients from the message itself 
   instead of from the command line.