Send gmail from command prompt

Recently I was just playing with telnet, ssl etc. Reason being, learning how to check http web server on port 80 using telnet. It is a faster approach than opening a browser and type url and wait from the page to load, blah blah.... Specially when your intention is just to verify and not bothered about the content much and you are doing it frequently and multiple times.

telnet www.your_website.com 80
(Enter)
GET /index.php HTTP/1.1
host: www.your_website.com
(Enter)
(Enter)

And you should be able to see the content there in the command prompt. Then this thing came to my mind, can I also send mail or receive mail from the command prompt. Well yah, very much.... So here is how did I send mail from my gmail account:

Steps:

1. You need to get into the SMTP server via telnet if it is not encrypted, or via SSL/TLS (encrypted), gmail uses encrypted communication.

2. You need to authenticate yourself using your gmail username and password.

3. Specify the sender's and receiver's address.

4. Type in the subject and content.

5. Send it.

Generally for an unencrypted custom SMTP server, it is quite simpler and explained here.

But this uses SSL/TLS. So here is it:

1. Login to gmail smtp server

openssl s_client -crlf -connect smtp.gmail.com:465

It will reply a lot of test and at the end of it you should seee

220 mx.google.com ESMTP 14sm2559253gxk.11

220 code means OK.

2. Authenticate yourself:

You need to encrypt your username and password first:

perl -MMIME::Base64 -e 'print encode_base64("\000My_EMAIL\@DOMAIN.com\000MY_PASSWORD")'

Once you give your username and password there properly, you should get an encrypted test in response. Copy that. Go back to your SMTP server prompt and type the following:

AUTH PLAIN your_encrypted_password_from_previous_step

235 2.7.0 Accepted

3. Specify the sender's and receiver's address.

mail from:

250 2.1.0 OK 14sm2559253gxk.11

rcpt to:

250 2.1.5 OK 14sm2559253gxk.11

4. Type in the subject and content: It starts with the "data" keyword.

data

354 Go ahead 14sm2559253gxk.11

subject: test

(enter)

(enter)

hello, This is my content

5. Send it: Once you are done writing the content, type "." (dot) and it enter twice to send it accross.

.

(enter)

(enter)

250 2.0.0 OK 1267453152 14sm2559253gxk.11

The last "." in the command signifies the end of the mail and sends it across. And!!! Trinnnn, youv'e got a mail....