Specify the from user when sending email using the

Question

Does anyone know how to change the from user when sending email using the mail command? I have looked through the man page and can not see how to do this.

We are running Redhat Linux 5.

Answer 1

You can specify any extra header you may need with -a

$mail -s "Some random subject" -a "From: [e-mail]" [e-mail]

Answer 2

I faced the same issue. But i solved the problem just be setting geko field in /ect/passwd field. Postfix by default send the mail from user login. Lets suppose you want to change from field to Alert. You just need to edit /ect/passwd file in any editor you like.

1. vim /ect/passwd

root:x:0:0:Alerts:/root:/bin/bash

2. Restart postfix.

Now check the result.

3. echo "This is the main body of the mail" | mail -s "Subject of the Email" [e-mail]

Now in recipient. From will be shown as Alerts as you have specified in geko field. Hope this solution works for you.

Answer 3

When sending over SMTP, the mail man page advises to set the from variable, in this way (Tested on CentOS 6):

mail -s Subject -S from=[e-mail] [e-mail]

You could also attach a file using the -a option:

mail -s Subject -S from=[e-mail] -a path_to_attachement [e-mail]

Answer 4

mail -r [e-mail] -R [e-mail]

-r = from-addr -R = reply-to addr

The author has indicated his version of mail doesn't support this flag. But if you have a version that does this works fine.