Dbformmail (1) Linux Manual Page

dbformmail – write a shell script that will send e-mail to many people

Synopsis

dbformmail [-m MECHANISM] format_file.txt

Description

Read a “form mail” message from the file FORMAT_FILE.TXT, filling in underscore-preceded column-names with data. Output a shell script which will send each message through some mail transport MECHANISM.

Do not use this program for evil or I will have to come over and have words with you.

Note that this program does NOT actually SEND the mail. It writes a shell script that will send the mail for you. I recommend you save it to a file, check it (one last time!), then run it with sh.

Unlike most Fsdb programs, this program does not output a FSDB file.

Options

-m MECHANISM: Select the mail-sending mechanism. Choose “Mail” or “sendmail”. Defaults to “Mail”.

This module also supports the standard fsdb options:

-d: Enable debugging output.
-i or –input InputSource: Read from InputSource, typically a file name, or "-" for standard input, or (if in Perl) a IO::Handle, Fsdb::IO or Fsdb::BoundedQueue objects.
-o or –output OutputDestination: Write to OutputDestination, typically a file name, or "-" for standard output, or (if in Perl) a IO::Handle, Fsdb::IO or Fsdb::BoundedQueue objects.
–autorun or –noautorun: By default, programs process automatically, but Fsdb::Filter objects in Perl do not run until you invoke the run() method. The "–(no)autorun" option controls that behavior within Perl.
–help: Show help.
–man: Show full manual.

Sample Usage

Input:

 #fsdb account passwd uid gid fullname homedir shell

 johnh * 2274 134 John_Heidemann /home/johnh /bin/bash

 greg * 2275 134 Greg_Johnson /home/greg /bin/bash

 root * 0 0 Root /root /bin/bash

 # this is a simple database

Sample form (in the file form.txt):

 To: _account

 From: the sysadmin <root>

 Subject: time to change your password

 Please change your password regularly.

 Doesn’t this message make you feel safer?

Command:

 cat DATA/passwd.fsdb | dbformmail form.txt >outgoing.sh

Output (in outgoing.sh):

 #!/bin/sh

 sendmail ‘johnh’ <<‘END’

 To: johnh

 From: the sysadmin <root>

 Subject: time to change your password
 Please change your password regularly.

 Doesn’t this message make you feel safer?

 END

 sendmail ‘greg’ <<‘END’

 (etc.)

And to send the mail, run

 sh outgoing.sh

AUTHOR and COPYRIGHT

This program is distributed under terms of the GNU general public license, version 2. See the file COPYING with the distribution for details.

dbformmail (1) Linux Manual Page