[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: How does Cron send email?



Miles Fidelman wrote:
Grok Mogger wrote:
I was hoping someone could help me understand how cron magically sends email. My ultimate goal is to configure cron to send real Internet email so instead of just getting mail on my unix accounts on my linux box (which I read via the 'mail' command) I can get email at my gmail account.
Basic answer comes from the manpage for cron:

When executing commands, any output is mailed to the owner of the crontab (or to the user named in the MAILTO environment variable in the
      crontab, if such exists).
so... simple answer is define MAILTO in your crontab

broader answer depends on what mail you want sent - you can always include a sendmail command in whatever script you're running

Miles




I have read the cron manpage. I understand what cron mails and under what conditions it mails it, what I don't understand is HOW it mails it. I know that cron just sends the output of whatever script it runs. I don't understand how it mails that output. I'd like to understand how it does that so that I can make it send email to a gmail account or a similar "real" Internet account.

Are you telling me that if I set my MAILTO entry to something like 'Joe.Person@gmail.com', that's actually going to send legitimate Internet mail to Joe at his gmail account? I find that hard to believe.




Reply to: