SEND(1)SEND(1)NAMEsend - send a message
SYNOPSISsend [-alias aliasfile] [-draft] [-draftfolder +folder] [-draftmessage
msg] [-nodraftfolder] [-filter filterfile] [-nofilter] [-format |
-noformat] [-forward | -noforward] [-mime | -nomime] [-msgid |
-nomsgid] [-messageid localname | random] [-push | -nopush]
[-split seconds] [-verbose | -noverbose] [-watch | -nowatch] [-mts
smtp | sendmail/smtp | sendmail/pipe] [-server servername] [-port
port-name/number] [-sasl] [-nosasl] [-saslmaxssf ssf] [-saslmech
mechanism] [-snoop] [-user username] [-tls] [-initialtls] [-notls]
[-width columns] [file ...] [-version] [-help]
DESCRIPTION
Send will cause each of the specified files to be delivered to each of
the destinations in the “To:”, “cc:”, “Bcc:”, “Dcc:”, and “Fcc:” fields
of the message. If send is re-distributing a message, as invoked from
dist, then the corresponding “Resent-xxx” fields are examined instead.
By default, send uses the program post to do the actual delivery of the
messages, although this can be changed by defining the postproc profile
component. Most of the features attributed to send are actually per‐
formed by post.
Before send gives the message to post for delivery, the message is pro‐
cessed by mhbuild to perform any necessary MIME encoding of the outgo‐
ing message. This can be changed by the buildmimeproc profile compo‐
nent. mhbuild is invoked with the -auto switch, so mhbuild directives
are not processed by default. See mhbuild(1) for more information.
mhbuild will scan the message draft for a header named Attach. The
draft is converted to a MIME message if one or more matches are found.
This conversion occurs before all other processing. The whatnow(1) man
page describes the user interface for managing MIME attachments via
this mechanism.
The first part of the MIME message is the draft body if that body con‐
tains any non-blank characters. The body of each Attach header field
is interpreted as a file name, and each file named is included as a
separate part in the MIME message.
Determination of the content MIME type inserted into the Content-Type
header for each part depends on how the nmh installation was config‐
ured. If a program, such as file with a --mime or -i option, was found
that can specify the type of a file as a MIME type string, then that
will be used. To determine if your nmh was so configured, run mhparam
mimetypeproc and see if a non-empty string is displayed.
If your nmh was not configured with a program to specify a file type as
a MIME string, then a different method is used to determine the con‐
tent-type string. For file names with dot suffixes, the profile is
scanned for a mhshow-suffix- entry for that suffix. The content-type
for the part is taken from that profile entry if a match is found. If
a match is not found in the user profile, the mhn.defaults profile is
scanned next. If no match is found or the file does not have a dot
suffix, the content-type is text/plain if the file contains only ASCII
characters or application/octet-stream if it contains characters out‐
side of the ASCII range. See mhshow(1) for more details and example
syntax.
Each attached MIME part contains a “Content-Description” header that
includes the filename, and adds a “Content-Disposition” header. Here
is an example of MIME part headers for an attachment:
Content-Type: text/plain; name="VERSION"; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: VERSION
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="VERSION"
If -push is specified, send will detach itself from the user's terminal
and perform its actions in the background. If push'd and the draft
can't be sent, then an error message will be sent (using the mailproc)
back to the user. If -forward is given, then a copy of the draft will
be attached to this failure notice. Using -push differs from putting
send in the background because the output is trapped and analyzed by
nmh.
If -verbose is specified, send will indicate the interactions occurring
with the transport system, prior to actual delivery. If -watch is
specified send will monitor the delivery of local and network mail.
Hence, by specifying both switches, a large detail of information can
be gathered about each step of the message's entry into the transport
system.
The -draftfolder +folder and -draftmessage msg switches invoke the nmh
draft folder facility. This is an advanced (and highly useful) fea‐
ture. Consult the mh-draft(5) man page for more information.
If -split is specified, send will split the draft into one or more par‐
tial messages prior to sending. This makes use of the MIME features in
nmh. Note however that if send is invoked under dist, then this switch
is ignored -- it makes no sense to redistribute a message in this fash‐
ion. Sometimes you want send to pause after posting a partial message.
This is usually the case when you are running sendmail and expect to
generate a lot of partial messages. The argument to -split tells it
how long to pause between postings.
Send with no file argument will query whether the draft is the intended
file, whereas -draft will suppress this question. Once the transport
system has successfully accepted custody of the message, the file will
be renamed with a site-dependent prefix (usually a comma), which allows
it to be retrieved until the next draft message is sent. If there are
errors in the formatting of the message, send will abort with a (hope‐
fully) helpful error message.
If a “Bcc:” field is encountered, its addresses will be used for deliv‐
ery, and the “Bcc:” field will be removed from the message sent to
sighted recipients. The blind recipients will receive an entirely new
message with a minimal set of headers. Included in the body of the
message will be a copy of the message sent to the sighted recipients.
If a “Dcc:” field is encountered and the sendmail/pipe mail transport
method is not in use, its addresses will be used for delivery, and the
“Dcc:” field will be removed from the message. The blind recipients
will receive the same message sent to the sighted recipients. *WARNING*
Recipients listed in the “Dcc:” field receive no explicit indication
that they have received a “blind copy”. This can cause blind recipi‐
ents to inadvertently reply to all of the sighted recipients of the
original message, revealing that they received a blind copy. On the
other hand, since a normal reply to a message sent via a “Bcc:” field
will generate a reply only to the sender of the original message, it
takes extra effort in most mailers to reply to the included message,
and so would usually only be done deliberately, rather than by acci‐
dent.
If -filter filterfile is specified, then this copy is filtered (re-for‐
matted) by mhl prior to being sent to the blind recipients. Alter‐
nately, if you specify the -mime switch, then send will use the MIME
rules for encapsulation.
Prior to sending the message, the “Date: now” field will be appended to
the headers in the message. If -msgid is specified, then a “Mes‐
sage-ID:” field will also be added to the message.
The -messageid switch selects the style used for the part appearing
after the @ in “Message-ID:”, “Resent-Message-ID:”, and “Content-ID:”
header fields. The two acceptable options are localname (which is the
default), and random. With localname, the local hostname is used.
With random, a random sequence of characters is used instead. Note
that the -msgid switch must be enabled for this switch to have any
effect.
If send is re-distributing a message (when invoked by dist), then
“Resent-” will be prepended to each of these fields: “From:”, “Date:”,
and “Message-ID:”.
A “From:” field is required for all outgoing messages. Multiple
addresses are permitted in the “From:” field, but a “Sender:” field is
required in this case. Otherwise a “Sender:” field is optional.
If a message with multiple “From:” addresses does NOT include a
“Sender:” field but does include an “Envelope-From:” field, the “Enve‐
lope-From:” field will be used to construct a “Sender:” field.
When using SMTP for mail submission, the envelope-from used for the
SMTP transaction is derived from the “Envelope-From:” field. If no
“Envelope-From:” field is present, the “Sender:” field is used. If
neither the “Envelope-From:” nor the “Sender:” field is present, the
“From:” field is used. When “Envelope-From:” appears in a message it
will be removed from the final outgoing message.
By using the -format switch, each of the entries in the “To:” and “cc:”
fields will be replaced with “standard” format entries. This standard
format is designed to be usable by all of the message handlers on the
various systems around the Internet. If -noformat is given, then head‐
ers are output exactly as they appear in the message draft.
If an “Fcc: folder” is encountered, the message will be copied to the
specified folder for the sender in the format in which it will appear
to any non-Bcc receivers of the message. That is, it will have the
appended fields and field reformatting. The “Fcc:” fields will be
removed from all outgoing copies of the message.
By using the -width columns switch, the user can direct send as to how
long it should make header lines containing addresses.
The mail transport system default is provided in
/usr/local/etc/nmh/mts.conf but can be overriiden here with the -mts
switch.
If nmh is using the SMTP MTA, the -server and the -port switches can be
used to override the default mail server (defined by the
/usr/local/etc/nmh/mts.conf servers entry). The -snoop switch can be
used to view the SMTP transaction. (Beware that the SMTP transaction
may contain authentication information either in plaintext or easily
decoded base64.)
If nmh has been compiled with SASL support, the -sasl and -nosasl
switches will enable and disable the use of SASL authentication with
the SMTP MTA. Depending on the SASL mechanism used, this may require
an additional password prompt from the user (but the netrc file can be
used to store this password, as described in the mh-profile(5) man
page). The -saslmech switch can be used to select a particular SASL
mechanism, and the -user switch can be used to select a authorization
userid to provide to SASL other than the default. The credentials pro‐
file entry in the mh-profile(5) man page describes the ways to supply a
username and password.
If SASL authentication is successful, nmh will attempt to negotiate a
security layer for session encryption. Encrypted data is labelled with
`(encrypted)' and `(decrypted)' when viewing the SMTP transaction with
the -snoop switch. The -saslmaxssf switch can be used to select the
maximum value of the Security Strength Factor. This is an integer
value and the exact meaning of this value depends on the underlying
SASL mechanism. A value of 0 disables encryption.
If nmh has been compiled with TLS support, the -tls and -initialtls
switches will require the negotiation of TLS when connecting to the
SMTP MTA. The -tls switch will negotiate TLS as part of the normal
SMTP protocol using the STARTTLS command. The -initialtls will negoti‐
ate TLS immediately after the connection has taken place, before any
SMTP commands are sent or received. Encrypted data is labelled with
`(tls-encrypted)' and `(tls-decrypted)' when viewing the SMTP transc‐
tion with the -snoop switch. The -notls switch will disable all
attempts to negotiate TLS.
The files specified by the profile entry “Aliasfile:” and any addi‐
tional alias files given by the -alias aliasfile switch will be read
(more than one file, each preceded by -alias, can be named). See
mh-alias(5) for more information.
FILES
$HOME/.mh_profile The user profile
PROFILE COMPONENTS
Path: To determine the user's nmh directory
Draft-Folder: To find the default draft-folder
Aliasfile: For a default alias file
Signature: To determine the user's mail signature
mailproc: Program to post failure notices
postproc: Program to post the message
SEE ALSOcomp(1), dist(1), file(1), forw(1), mhparam(1), repl(1), whatnow(1),
mh-alias(5), mh-profile(5), mh-tailor(5), post(8)DEFAULTS
`file' defaults to <mh-dir>/draft
`-alias' defaults to /usr/local/etc/nmh/MailAliases
`-nodraftfolder'
`-nofilter'
`-format'
`-forward'
`-nomime'
`-nomsgid'
`-messageid localname'
`-nopush'
`-noverbose'
`-nowatch'
`-width 72'
CONTEXT
None
BUGS
Under some configurations, it is not possible to monitor the mail
delivery transaction; -watch is a no-op on those systems.
Using -split 0 doesn't work correctly.
nmh-1.6 January 23, 2014 SEND(1)
