NAME
mailout
- sends personalised html email to a number of recipients.
SYNOPSIS
mailout
[
-c
<config_file>
] [
-d
]
[
-n
# records
] [
-t
] [
-v
] [
-x
]
[
-X
<exclude_file>
]
[
<message_file>
]
AVAILABILITY
mailout
is a Bourne shell script and should work equally well on all versions of UNIX,
Linux and Mac OS X.
DESCRIPTION
The script
mailout
extracts names and email addresses from a csv data file and uses
awk
to generate personalised html email to each recipient in the list.
Sendmail
is is used as the
MUA
and the
"from"
address is set in the
script.
If the
-n
option is used (see options below) the number of emails may be restricted.
The script keeps track of the recipients to whom the message has been sent
and the next time it is run skips those records and sends messages
to new addresses only.
The default data file is
/var/mailout/data.csv
. This may be changed
in the configuration file.
The default message file is
/var/mailout/msg
but this is normally
changed by specifying the file on the command line.
Mailout
does not
care if the message is in html format or not.
OPTIONS
-c
<config_file>
The default configuration file is
/usr/local/etc/mailout.cf
, this
may be changed on the command line by using the
-c
option.
-d
Set
debug
mode on. The script will report its progress to screen
as it runs.
-t
Sets
test
mode. The script runs through all its usual actions and reports
recipient details as it would normally but the email is actually sent to a
single email address under the control of the user. This is to allow
verification by inspection of the resulting message content.
-v
Set the operation mode of the script to
verbose.
In
verbose
mode
mailout
will echo to screen the recipient details for each
message sent.
-x
With the
-x
option set the recipients that would otherwise be contacted
are extracted and reported to screen but no mail is sent. This is useful
where is desirable to to check the potential recipients or cross reference
with other mailouts before committing to sending the message.
-X
<exclude_file>
The
-X
option allows an exclude file to be specified on the command line.
The default exclude file is
/usr/local/etc/mailout.xcld
, although this
may be changed using the configuration file. The exclude files are lists of mail
addresses and mail domains to which mail should not be sent. Both files will
be consulted if the
-X
<exclude_file>
option is used.
EXAMPLES
mailout -n 20 -v ad010429.html
Send personalised email using the file ad010429.html to the next 20
recipients from the
/var/mailout/data.csv
.
List the recipients to screen as each email is sent.
BUGS
Not really bugs but the script has very little input error checking.
The fields for the recipient names and email addresses are hardwired
as are the strings that are to be substituted in the message file, ie.
"rcpt"
and "
firstname
".
The
from
address is also hardwired.
FILES
/usr/local/etc/mailout.cf,
/var/mailout/data.csv,
/var/mailout/deleted.csv,
/var/mailout/mailout.xcld.
AUTHOR
Clifford W Fulford, City Linux. Contact fulford@fulford.net or +44 (0)709 229 5385.
