UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I have a BASH shell script that batch processes data. I often start this script before I leave to go home for the day, and leave it processing over night. It has come to my attention that it would be very useful for me to add the capability of making the script notify me about certain things (erroring on a file, completing a processing run, etc.). How can I make the script email me or send me a text message to my phone? Thanks for any help.

Mike

email function for a script

Code:

# usage: email "message to send"   "email address"
email()
{
     echo "$1"  | /usr/bin/mailx -s "Problem with script"   $2
}
# example
email 'the script bombed on line 9'  'me@my.com'

Hi Jim,

Thank you very much for the reply! A few questions:

- I didn't appear to have mailx installed. When I typed mailx the following was returned:

Code:

mike@mikebrown-desktop:~/Desktop$ mailx
The program 'mailx' can be found in the following packages:
 * heirloom-mailx
 * mailutils
Try: sudo apt-get install <selected package>

I installed mailutils (GNU Mailutils - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)). Was that best option? Supposedly it has replaced mailx.

- Do you have any advice on how to use a unix mail function to check mail at a specific email address. I wonder if it is possible to receive an email from my script, respond to that email, and have the script perform a task depending on my response. Thanks again for your help.

Mike

---------- Post updated at 03:27 PM ---------- Previous update was at 02:50 PM ----------

I also wonder if there is additional configurations I need to do because I have not received any of the emails I sent myself.

Mike