Receive email on Linux system

[Xiomar]

Linux servers are able to send emails to their directors to inform them of the good or bad operating system (result of a Crontab and logwatch...). By default, this feature is not enabled, here's how to implement it. To enable the sending of email system, simply edit the file / etc / aliases and to enter your email address at the end, like this:

# Person Who should get root's mail
root: [email protected]

[Xiomar]

Then run this command, to take account of changes (it recreated the file / etc / aliases.db):

newaliases

System messages will now be redirected to your email account. Be careful though, so that they are properly dispatched, you need a mail server on your machine. I advise you to sendmail, which works very well with the basic configuration.

[Xiomar]

Run the following command to install it on a distribution based on Debian:

apt-get install sendmail
update-rc.d sendmail defaults
/ Etc / init.d / sendmail start

Or these for distribution based on RPM:

yum install sendmail
chkconfig sendmail one
/ Etc / init.d / sendmail start

You can then check that emails go well with a command like this:

echo-e "To: [email protected] \ nSubject: Test \ nTest \ n" | sendmail-bm-t-v

The file that centralizes all the errors on sending emails is / var / log / maillog. It will consult in case of problems. Otherwise, remember to configure an email filter system for storing email in a special folder. The frequency of transmission of the latter is sometimes important, especially if your server has problems.