nc [net-cat] to post to nntp ?

Since my ISP is regularly ooo [why should it be down on long
weekends, when there's no horse to water or crank to turn ?!],
I want some light-weight safety facilities.

I love mulinux's minimalist scripts, and have been able to
figure out from them that:
cat <pre-prepared email file> | sendmail -t
will send an email.

Which is nice for brief online sessions, especially when embedded in
a script:--

lynx -dump '<URL1> ' > f1
....
lynx -dump '<URLn> ' > fn
--
The mulinux author uses nc for fetching/posting mail & news.

He's got ash-scripts [to fit all on a single fd0] which eg.:--

if connected && [ -z "$Q_option" ] ; then
nc -v -w 60 -e $SMTP_PRO $host $SMTP_PORT
rc=$?
echo -n " ... sent."
return $rc
---
Where "$SMTP_PRO" is the [inner] script which supplies the data
for nc.

Since I haven't got proper nc with its man, I can't see how this works.
Is "-e $SMTP_PRO" effectively considered as a 'list' of files supplied
by the $SMTP_PRO script ?

So if I replaced it with <Email File>, would I be able to post
one Email ? My ISP is down for testing if mails are received !

How would I post one News Article using 'nc', where I want
to simplify his:
nc -v -w 60 -e $NNTP_PRO $NTPSERVER nntp
by supplying just one NewsArticle-file instead of his "$NNTP_PRO" ?
I can see what $NTPSERVER and nntp resolve to.

Thanks for any info,

== Chris Glur.

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> I love mulinux's minimalist scripts, and have been able to
> figure out from them that:
> cat <pre-prepared email file> | sendmail -t
> will send an email.

If you're into minimalism, just do "sendmail -t < preprepared_file". You
almost never need "cat" if you're referencing a single file.


> nc -v -w 60 -e $SMTP_PRO $host $SMTP_PORT

> Where "$SMTP_PRO" is the [inner] script which supplies the data
> for nc.

> Since I haven't got proper nc with its man, I can't see how this works.
> Is "-e $SMTP_PRO" effectively considered as a 'list' of files supplied
> by the $SMTP_PRO script ?

The "-e" option to nc specifies a filename to exec after the connect
has occurred, which in your example's case is a connection to "$host"
on port $SMTP_PORT (probably 25).


> So if I replaced it with <Email File>, would I be able to post
> one Email?

Of course not; $SMTP_PRO is a script that's executed, not a data file.
You need to look at the contents of SMTP_PRO to determine whether it can
easily be tweaked to send a single email.


> My ISP is down for testing if mails are received !

I have no idea what you mean by that statement.


> How would I post one News Article using 'nc', where I want
> to simplify his:
> nc -v -w 60 -e $NNTP_PRO $NTPSERVER nntp
> by supplying just one NewsArticle-file instead of his "$NNTP_PRO" ?
> I can see what $NTPSERVER and nntp resolve to.

You would need a script referenced by $NNTP_PRO that spoke the NNTP
protocol for you. I suspect in your case this would include parsing
the newsgroup names from one or more articles, and generating local
message-ids.

Chris

In article <01vku3-(E-Mail Removed)>, Chris Davies <chris-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> (E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> > I love mulinux's minimalist scripts, and have been able to
> > figure out from them that:
> > cat <pre-prepared email file> | sendmail -t
> > will send an email.
>
> If you're into minimalism, just do "sendmail -t < preprepared_file". You
> almost never need "cat" if you're referencing a single file.
>
>
OK, I propably just extracted the 'send' cmnd from his loop.
BTW what means:
cat <fileName> << EOF
and
cat << EOF
?

He writes ash for small size, but I'm guessing it's valid/similar for bash ?

> > nc -v -w 60 -e $SMTP_PRO $host $SMTP_PORT
>
> > Where "$SMTP_PRO" is the [inner] script which supplies the data
> > for nc.
>
> > Since I haven't got proper nc with its man, I can't see how this works.
> > Is "-e $SMTP_PRO" effectively considered as a 'list' of files supplied
> > by the $SMTP_PRO script ?
>
> The "-e" option to nc specifies a filename to exec after the connect
> has occurred, which in your example's case is a connection to "$host"
> on port $SMTP_PORT (probably 25).
>
>
> > So if I replaced it with <Email File>, would I be able to post
> > one Email?
>
> Of course not; $SMTP_PRO is a script that's executed, not a data file.
> You need to look at the contents of SMTP_PRO to determine whether it can
> easily be tweaked to send a single email.
>
>
So can you proposes a one/two line script, to send one email-file ?

So far:
sendmail -t < preparedEmail_file -fname2tst
mails to my other URL, but gives a false
Return-Path: <(E-Mail Removed)>

I have to run as root, to hack this stuff, and I can't see how/where
to set the domain. I tried to set & export 'HOSTNAME' from inside
the script which calls sendmail, but failed.

> > My ISP is down for testing if mails are received !
>
> I have no idea what you mean by that statement.
>
>
My ISP is presently non-functional, for the purpose of me testing if
any mails which I transmit are received by another URL [than the
Txing URL].

> > How would I post one News Article using 'nc', where I want
> > to simplify his:
> > nc -v -w 60 -e $NNTP_PRO $NTPSERVER nntp
> > by supplying just one NewsArticle-file instead of his "$NNTP_PRO" ?
> > I can see what $NTPSERVER and nntp resolve to.
>
> You would need a script referenced by $NNTP_PRO that spoke the NNTP
> protocol for you. I suspect in your case this would include parsing
> the newsgroup names from one or more articles, and generating local
> message-ids.
>
Yes, it looks as if that's what his ash-script does.

I'd like to 'stub it out'.
Ie. use succcessive refinement.
Ie. first just pass one news article and the $NTPSERVER and the protocol
[nntp], instead of a routine to do all this.

There must be basic templates for nc to do:
* send one email,
* send one NewsArticle,
* ...etc.

> Chris
>
Thanks,
== Chris Glur.

On comp.os.linux.networking, in <(E-Mail Removed)>, "(E-Mail Removed)" wrote:

<snip>

I use nc for a lot of things, like retrieving mail from a pop
server....And writing a basic bash/ash(sh) newsreader wouldn't
be a problem, but you are violating the Netiquette by failing to
use a name in your from header.

So we'll see you around. Study shell scripting. See the FAQ
for comp.unix.shell.

You are obviously out of your depth here.

And I think you want alt.os.linux.slackware.

Alan

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