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how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine

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  how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine Dan Hitt <dan.hitt@gmail.com> - 2018-03-29 07:50 +0200
    Re: how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine Dominik George <nik@naturalnet.de> - 2018-03-29 09:10 +0200
      Re: how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2018-03-29 09:20 +0200
        Re: how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine Curt <curty@free.fr> - 2018-03-29 11:50 +0200
      Re: how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine Dan Hitt <dan.hitt@gmail.com> - 2018-03-29 19:40 +0200
    Re: how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine Liam O'Toole <liam.p.otoole@gmail.com> - 2018-03-29 09:10 +0200
    Re: how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine songbird <songbird@anthive.com> - 2018-03-29 13:40 +0200
    Re: how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2018-03-29 22:40 +0200
      Re: how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine Dan Hitt <dan.hitt@gmail.com> - 2018-03-29 23:00 +0200
        Re: how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine Dan Hitt <dan.hitt@gmail.com> - 2018-03-30 06:10 +0200
        Re: how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2018-03-30 06:10 +0200
          Re: how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine Dan Hitt <dan.hitt@gmail.com> - 2018-03-30 06:20 +0200
        Re: how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> - 2018-03-30 06:50 +0200
          Re: how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine Dan Hitt <dan.hitt@gmail.com> - 2018-03-30 07:30 +0200
          Re: how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> - 2018-03-30 07:40 +0200
            Re: how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> - 2018-03-30 09:40 +0200

#194255 — how do you send mail to another user on a local debian machine

Today i needed to send a message to another user on my debian box.

I thought i'd just do what used to be the usual thing on a unix box:
i compose-mail in emacs (control-x m), and drafted the text, and put
in the other user's name in the To: line.

I then hit control-c control-c to mail it, but was really shocked when
instead of sending it off, instead, my firefox popped up, displaying
gmail, and my text was loaded in, poised to send off.

I can see that would be useful (and in fact, i'm using this method
right now to compose this mail just to see if it will actually
go through), but it's not at all something that i asked for.

So . . . if you want to send mail to another user on your box, and
you do not want it to get bounced around on the internet but only
to go into some spool queue somewhere strictly on your local machine,
how do you do it?

TIA for any info!! :)

dan

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#194256

Hi,

>So . . . if you want to send mail to another user on your box, and
>you do not want it to get bounced around on the internet but only
>to go into some spool queue somewhere strictly on your local machine,
>how do you do it?

Sounds very much like an emacs anti-feature.

$ mail -s Spammedyspam jdoe <<<"Bacon eggs without the spam"

works perfectly on stretch and buster/sid.

Can you try that and also mutt?

-nik

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#194260

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Hash: SHA1

On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 08:42:34AM +0200, Dominik George wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> >So . . . if you want to send mail to another user on your box, and
> >you do not want it to get bounced around on the internet but only
> >to go into some spool queue somewhere strictly on your local machine,
> >how do you do it?
> 
> Sounds very much like an emacs anti-feature.

It's not. You just have to customize that (start with the variable
"mail-user-agent" and work from there).

Hint: at the end, it's not Emacs sending the mail but passing it
to whatever mail transfer agent you told it to use...

> $ mail -s Spammedyspam jdoe <<<"Bacon eggs without the spam"
> 
> works perfectly on stretch and buster/sid.

...as mutt or mail or all the other civilized mail user agents
will do.

So if you want to send mail to someone in the same box (or in
your local network or...), you'll have to set up a mail transport
which knows how to do that (exim, postfix, whatever).

If you just want to send a message to a local user (and this
user has some console open), try "write".

Cheers
- -- tomás
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#194266

On 2018-03-29, <tomas@tuxteam.de> <tomas@tuxteam.de> wrote:
>
> So if you want to send mail to someone in the same box (or in
> your local network or...), you'll have to set up a mail transport
> which knows how to do that (exim, postfix, whatever).
>

I believe this is the default, no (exim set up for local mail only, so
that various daemons etc. can communicate with regular_joe@home?

IOW if you install Stretch and fail to intervene with the mailing system,
that's what you get (local mail works, no set up required).

Or something. Ignore this maybe.

-- 
We are no longer the same, you wiser but not sadder, and I sadder but not
wiser, for wiser I could hardly become without grave personal inconvenience,
whereas sorrow is a thing you can keep adding to all your life long, is it not,
like a stamp or an egg collection, without feeling very much the worse for it,
is it not. --Samuel Beckett

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#194273

On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 11:42 PM, Dominik George <nik@naturalnet.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>>So . . . if you want to send mail to another user on your box, and
>>you do not want it to get bounced around on the internet but only
>>to go into some spool queue somewhere strictly on your local machine,
>>how do you do it?
>
> Sounds very much like an emacs anti-feature.
>
> $ mail -s Spammedyspam jdoe <<<"Bacon eggs without the spam"
>
> works perfectly on stretch and buster/sid.
>
> Can you try that and also mutt?
>
> -nik
>

Thanks Dominick!

Your command works (using 'mail' without any arguments to receive).

I did have to install mailutils first (thanks Liam for pointing out
the package: i discovered that 'mail' is not a package! :) ).

Thanks Tomas also, for the information about setting up a mail
transport (and the suggestion to use write).  Although i did not do
that explicitly, i imagine that apt-get did it somehow.  (That would
confirm what Curt (thanks for replying!) was saying about no setup
being required.)

And thanks songbird for replying: you are right, i specified next to
nothing about my setup.  (My excuse is that i was still in a state of
shock.  :)  But i guess in that case i should have waited 24 hours to
post.)    I haven't decided yet whether to configure emacs to use
local mail though, because the vast majority of my mail is over the
internet, and it is very, very convenient to manage mail inside emacs
(although i have not done that for probably 20 years).  I do kind of
wonder how emacs learned about my gmail account though, surely Google
hasn't penetrated the space to the extent that it would be a heuristic
to guess.  My debian is stretch, btw, and i guess maybe i specified my
gmail address to it at setup time or something?  My email address
certainly does not appear anywhere in my .emacs.d/init.el that i can
see . . .

Thanks again everybody for all your help!!

dan

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#194257

On 2018-03-29, Dan Hitt <dan.hitt@gmail.com> wrote:
> Today i needed to send a message to another user on my debian box.
>
> I thought i'd just do what used to be the usual thing on a unix box:
> i compose-mail in emacs (control-x m), and drafted the text, and put
> in the other user's name in the To: line.
>
> I then hit control-c control-c to mail it, but was really shocked when
> instead of sending it off, instead, my firefox popped up, displaying
> gmail, and my text was loaded in, poised to send off.
>
> I can see that would be useful (and in fact, i'm using this method
> right now to compose this mail just to see if it will actually
> go through), but it's not at all something that i asked for.
>
> So . . . if you want to send mail to another user on your box, and
> you do not want it to get bounced around on the internet but only
> to go into some spool queue somewhere strictly on your local machine,
> how do you do it?
>
> TIA for any info!! :)
>
> dan
>
>

Using the mail command from the mailutils or bsd-mailx packages will
give you the behaviour you want.

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#194268

Dan Hitt wrote:

> Today i needed to send a message to another user on my debian box.
>
> I thought i'd just do what used to be the usual thing on a unix box:
> i compose-mail in emacs (control-x m), and drafted the text, and put
> in the other user's name in the To: line.
>
> I then hit control-c control-c to mail it, but was really shocked when
> instead of sending it off, instead, my firefox popped up, displaying
> gmail, and my text was loaded in, poised to send off.
>
> I can see that would be useful (and in fact, i'm using this method
> right now to compose this mail just to see if it will actually
> go through), but it's not at all something that i asked for.
>
> So . . . if you want to send mail to another user on your box, and
> you do not want it to get bounced around on the internet but only
> to go into some spool queue somewhere strictly on your local machine,
> how do you do it?
>
> TIA for any info!! :)

  you don't say what version of debian you are using
or your desktop or if no desktop, etc.  hard to give
details to help this way.

  you'd need to check for what your local machine may 
have setup for your mail transport.  i think the 
default is exim and only local delivery unless you 
configured it differently.

  you may just need to tell e-macs what command to
use.

  looking at /etc/alternatives can help sort things out.

  you may have set up somewhere your mail agent to be
firefox (in preferences for your desktop).  there are
several places to do this and i'm not familiar with
all desktops.


  songbird

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#194282

On Wed 28 Mar 2018 at 22:42:43 (-0700), Dan Hitt wrote:
> Today i needed to send a message to another user on my debian box.
> 
> I thought i'd just do what used to be the usual thing on a unix box:
> i compose-mail in emacs (control-x m), and drafted the text, and put
> in the other user's name in the To: line.
> 
> I then hit control-c control-c to mail it, but was really shocked when
> instead of sending it off, instead, my firefox popped up, displaying
> gmail, and my text was loaded in, poised to send off.
> 
> I can see that would be useful (and in fact, i'm using this method
> right now to compose this mail just to see if it will actually
> go through), but it's not at all something that i asked for.
> 
> So . . . if you want to send mail to another user on your box, and
> you do not want it to get bounced around on the internet but only
> to go into some spool queue somewhere strictly on your local machine,
> how do you do it?

I just write username@localhost instead of username on its own.
That should be enough to stop it leaving the system.

Cheers,
David.

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#194283

On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 1:32 PM, David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> wrote:
> On Wed 28 Mar 2018 at 22:42:43 (-0700), Dan Hitt wrote:
...
>> I thought i'd just do what used to be the usual thing on a unix box:
>> i compose-mail in emacs (control-x m), and drafted the text, and put
>> in the other user's name in the To: line.
...
> I just write username@localhost instead of username on its own.
> That should be enough to stop it leaving the system.
>
> Cheers,
> David.
>

Thanks David for your reply.

That doesn't seem to work for me, although maybe i'm not doing it
exactly the way you are --- were you using emacs to manage it?

In emacs, i tried the address otheruser@host, otheruser,
otheruser@localhost, otheruser@host.local

Here, 'host' is to stand for the hostname of my box, stripped of any
domain information.

In all four cases, it opened a new tab in my firefox browser, showing
gmail, with the message loaded, and the 'To' field populated.  (In the
case of otheruser, it was underlined in red.)

emacs also warned me that the addresses i was using 'might be bogus'.

However, invoking the 'mail' program directly does work for me, so i
have a solution (although if i could work it through emacs, without
having to do any serious configuration, it would be much better).

Thanks for the idea, though!

dan

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#194291

On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 9:02 PM, David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> wrote:
> On Thu 29 Mar 2018 at 13:50:54 (-0700), Dan Hitt wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 1:32 PM, David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> wrote:
>> > On Wed 28 Mar 2018 at 22:42:43 (-0700), Dan Hitt wrote:
>> ...
>> >> I thought i'd just do what used to be the usual thing on a unix box:
>> >> i compose-mail in emacs (control-x m), and drafted the text, and put
>> >> in the other user's name in the To: line.
>> ...
>> > I just write username@localhost instead of username on its own.
>> > That should be enough to stop it leaving the system.
>>
>> Thanks David for your reply.
>>
>> That doesn't seem to work for me, although maybe i'm not doing it
>> exactly the way you are --- were you using emacs to manage it?
>
> I just tested it and it worked fine, including the "bogus" message.
> It also puts a jokey aside into Message-ID because I have no name
> for my domain.
>
>> In emacs, i tried the address otheruser@host, otheruser,
>> otheruser@localhost, otheruser@host.local
>
> The third one, otheruser@localhost. There should be a line in
> /etc/hosts reading
>
> 127.0.0.1       localhost
>
>> Here, 'host' is to stand for the hostname of my box, stripped of any
>> domain information.
>>
>> In all four cases, it opened a new tab in my firefox browser, showing
>> gmail, with the message loaded, and the 'To' field populated.  (In the
>> case of otheruser, it was underlined in red.)
>
> If I type (in emacs) ^H v send-mail-function
> it tells me that that variable is set to sendmail-send-it which
> probably explains why emacs hands the email off to exim.
> Perhaps yours is set to mailclient-send-it? See
> https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Mail-Sending.html#Mail-Sending
>
>> emacs also warned me that the addresses i was using 'might be bogus'.
>
> Yep.
>
>> However, invoking the 'mail' program directly does work for me, so i
>> have a solution (although if i could work it through emacs, without
>> having to do any serious configuration, it would be much better).
>
> I haven't looked into how/whether Debian configures emacs according to
> which other packages you install (and in what order).
>
> Cheers,
> David.
>

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#194292

On Thu 29 Mar 2018 at 13:50:54 (-0700), Dan Hitt wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 1:32 PM, David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> wrote:
> > On Wed 28 Mar 2018 at 22:42:43 (-0700), Dan Hitt wrote:
> ...
> >> I thought i'd just do what used to be the usual thing on a unix box:
> >> i compose-mail in emacs (control-x m), and drafted the text, and put
> >> in the other user's name in the To: line.
> ...
> > I just write username@localhost instead of username on its own.
> > That should be enough to stop it leaving the system.
> 
> Thanks David for your reply.
> 
> That doesn't seem to work for me, although maybe i'm not doing it
> exactly the way you are --- were you using emacs to manage it?

I just tested it and it worked fine, including the "bogus" message.
It also puts a jokey aside into Message-ID because I have no name
for my domain.

> In emacs, i tried the address otheruser@host, otheruser,
> otheruser@localhost, otheruser@host.local

The third one, otheruser@localhost. There should be a line in
/etc/hosts reading

127.0.0.1	localhost

> Here, 'host' is to stand for the hostname of my box, stripped of any
> domain information.
> 
> In all four cases, it opened a new tab in my firefox browser, showing
> gmail, with the message loaded, and the 'To' field populated.  (In the
> case of otheruser, it was underlined in red.)

If I type (in emacs) ^H v send-mail-function
it tells me that that variable is set to sendmail-send-it which
probably explains why emacs hands the email off to exim.
Perhaps yours is set to mailclient-send-it? See
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Mail-Sending.html#Mail-Sending

> emacs also warned me that the addresses i was using 'might be bogus'.

Yep.

> However, invoking the 'mail' program directly does work for me, so i
> have a solution (although if i could work it through emacs, without
> having to do any serious configuration, it would be much better).

I haven't looked into how/whether Debian configures emacs according to
which other packages you install (and in what order).

Cheers,
David.

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#194293

Sorry everybody for mail-bombing the list, don't know how my previous
reply took off so fast :( :( :(

On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 9:02 PM, David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> wrote:
> On Thu 29 Mar 2018 at 13:50:54 (-0700), Dan Hitt wrote:
....
> The third one, otheruser@localhost. There should be a line in
> /etc/hosts reading
>
> 127.0.0.1       localhost
>

That indeed is there.

>
> If I type (in emacs) ^H v send-mail-function
> it tells me that that variable is set to sendmail-send-it which
> probably explains why emacs hands the email off to exim.
> Perhaps yours is set to mailclient-send-it? See
> https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Mail-Sending.html#Mail-Sending
>

You are exactly correct (i.e., it does read mailclient-send-it).

Now, in fact, my init.el does contain an assignment for
send-mail-function (if i'm reading it correctly).

But i don't think i put it there:  it seems to be part of something
called 'custom-set-variables', and it has the warning 'If you edit it
by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful'.

So for now i think i'll leave it alone until i get a chance to
understand the situation better.

Thanks David for pointing it out to me.

And sorry everybody for slipping on the send button!!! :(

dan

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#194294

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Dan Hitt [2018-03-29 13:50:54-07] wrote:

> In emacs, i tried the address otheruser@host, otheruser,
> otheruser@localhost, otheruser@host.local
>
> Here, 'host' is to stand for the hostname of my box, stripped of any
> domain information.
>
> In all four cases, it opened a new tab in my firefox browser, showing
> gmail, with the message loaded, and the 'To' field populated.  (In the
> case of otheruser, it was underlined in red.)

(Sorry for not having read previous messages the the thread.)

Emacs has different ways to send mail and that's configured with
variable send-mail-function or message-send-mail-function (if you use
message-mode for composing mail).

It seems to me that you want to use locally installed sendmail program
(or compatible) for sending mail so you would configure Emacs like this:

    (setq message-send-mail-function 'message-send-mail-with-sendmail)

-- 
/// Teemu Likonen   - .-..   <https://keybase.io/tlikonen> //
// PGP: 4E10 55DC 84E9 DFF6 13D7 8557 719D 69D3 2453 9450 ///

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#194295

On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 9:05 PM, Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> wrote:
> Dan Hitt [2018-03-29 13:50:54-07] wrote:
>
>> In emacs, i tried the address otheruser@host, otheruser,
>> otheruser@localhost, otheruser@host.local
>>
>> Here, 'host' is to stand for the hostname of my box, stripped of any
>> domain information.
>>
>> In all four cases, it opened a new tab in my firefox browser, showing
>> gmail, with the message loaded, and the 'To' field populated.  (In the
>> case of otheruser, it was underlined in red.)
>
> (Sorry for not having read previous messages the the thread.)
>
> Emacs has different ways to send mail and that's configured with
> variable send-mail-function or message-send-mail-function (if you use
> message-mode for composing mail).
>
> It seems to me that you want to use locally installed sendmail program
> (or compatible) for sending mail so you would configure Emacs like this:
>
>     (setq message-send-mail-function 'message-send-mail-with-sendmail)
>
> --
> /// Teemu Likonen   - .-..   <https://keybase.io/tlikonen> //
> // PGP: 4E10 55DC 84E9 DFF6 13D7 8557 719D 69D3 2453 9450 ///

Thanks Teemu.

That actually works.

The variable name message-send-mail-function is similar to
send-mail-function, which David had suggested i investigate and deal
with.  However, send-mail-function seems to be set up in some part of
my .emacs.d/init.el that i did not write (part of
custom-set-variables, and it has a warning to be careful when
modifying it by hand).  So i didn't pursue send-mail-function.

However, message-send-mail-function is not mentioned in my
.emacs.d/init.el, so i suppose i should be more relaxed about it (??).

Anyhow, it works, and this seems to be a complete solution to my problem.

Thanks again!

(And thanks everybody else for all the ideas and suggestions, which
are all educational and useful.)

dan

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#194296

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Teemu Likonen [2018-03-30 07:05:38+03] wrote:

> It seems to me that you want to use locally installed sendmail program
> (or compatible) for sending mail so you would configure Emacs like this:
>
>     (setq message-send-mail-function 'message-send-mail-with-sendmail)

Sorry, here's a correction. If you use Emacs's message-mode for
composing mail:

    (setq message-send-mail-function 'message-smtpmail-send-it)

If you use mail-mode instead:

    (setq send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)

Emacs's default mail user agent can be configured with variable
mail-user-agent. I also suggest reading the documentation of all the
above variables. For example: C-h v message-send-mail-function RET

-- 
/// Teemu Likonen   - .-..   <https://keybase.io/tlikonen> //
// PGP: 4E10 55DC 84E9 DFF6 13D7 8557 719D 69D3 2453 9450 ///

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#194298

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

Teemu Likonen [2018-03-30 08:34:26+03] wrote:

>     (setq message-send-mail-function 'message-smtpmail-send-it)

>     (setq send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)

It also seems that I should actually think because I'm mixing up things.
smtpmail-send-it function is for SMTP protocol (not sendmail program).

-- 
/// Teemu Likonen   - .-..   <https://keybase.io/tlikonen> //
// PGP: 4E10 55DC 84E9 DFF6 13D7 8557 719D 69D3 2453 9450 ///

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