E-mail capability for the root user is not activated by default and you may find it useful to ensure that this service is enabled and able to send messages.
You may be required to generate e-mail reports that should be issued to, or generated on the behalf of the root user, while those of you who enjoy the benefit of e-mail in order to issue notices will want a convenient solution that may not require a comprehensive mail server. E-mail capability is essential to every aspect of the administrator's role and this post looks at activating the root's e-mail and enabling all messages to be sent to a destination of your choice.
We install and set up mailx, a sending and recieving facility for mail on a Linux system.
First download mailx with yum
$ sudo yum -y install mailx
Open up the aliases file to add an address
$ sudo vi /etc/aliases
Scroll down to the person who gets roots email
# root: marc
Uncomment the line and change the value to your choice
root example@yourdomain.com
You can also send it to existing users as below
root: username1, username2
Save and close the file, then run the following to implement changes.
newaliases
Now send a test Email to check it works properly.
# echo "Test Email" | mail -s "This is a test email." externalemail@domain.com
You can check if anything is in the mailbox with
$ mailq
Mail queue is empty
And not forgetting the manual pages
$ man mailx
Quick and easy set up of the Mailx program.
Labels: Centos 6, install & run Mailx, RHEL