topic Re: corrupted attachments in Operating System - HP-UX

corrupted attachments

renarios — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 04:25:55 GMT

Hi All,

Every Friday automatically emails with attachments are sent from on of our HP-UX machines using mailx from a shell script. Some of these mails go directly to our internal our exchange server and some of them are sent cross-domain over the internet. Internally sent emails are received successfully, but one of our customers receives the email with a corrupted attachment. I have tested by sending the mail to my private mail server and the attachment is OK. Has anyone met the same issue? Can I change a parameter with mailx or should the customer change setting on their exchange server?
Here is a code fragment:
## Begin code

file="HUBBA.DAT"
filealias="HUBBA_$(date '+%m%d').DAT"
purpose="leerlingen-administratie"

filepath="/tmp"
DATFILE="${filepath}/${file}"
EXTENSION="${file#*.}"
BASE_NAME="${file%.${EXTENSION}}"
subject="blah blah"
message="blah blah"

# Check if datfile exists
f_check_datfile
f_retval

# Send the E-mail message...
mailx -r ${RETURN_ADDRESS} -s "${subject}" ${target_address} < $(ux2dos ${DATFILE} | uuencode ${filealias})
${notification}
Hallo ${firstname}. ${sirname},

${message}
${notification}
Bij dit bericht is het bestand ${filealias} als bijlage toegevoegd.

===================================================
Dit is een automatisch gegenereerde email.
Als u deze email ten onrechte heeft ontvangen,
meldt u dit a.u.b. aan ${RETURN_ADDRESS}
===================================================
EOF
## End code

Re: corrupted attachments

harry d brown jr — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 06:45:35 GMT

change this line:

mailx -r ${RETURN_ADDRESS} -s "${subject}" ${target_address} <
TO

mailx -m -r ${RETURN_ADDRESS} -s "${subject}" ${target_address} <
The "-m" tells mailx that the message contains mime encoded items.

I tested your original code sniplet and I ALSO received a "garbled" message:
----------------------------------------------
begin 666 =dah.txt
M:&]S=&YA;65A#0I(4B!D979E;&]P;65N="P@1&%T82!297!OM=F5L;W!M96YT+"!C2!S='5F9BP@;6]R92!C2!S='5F9@T*,<&ED('-T=69F#0H:
`
end
notification
Hallo firstname. sirname,
----------------------------------------------

But once I added the "-m" option the item came in as an attachment.

live free or die
harry d brown jr

Re: corrupted attachments

spex — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:00:06 GMT

renarios,

If you continue to have problems, you might want to give SEP's famous mailfile attachment script a shot:

http://www.hpux.ws/mailfile2

PCS

Re: corrupted attachments

renarios — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:00:52 GMT

Hi Harry,

You are right! In the original code I do use the -m option. With -m the email text is OK, but in the attachment some line feeds just dissapear.
If I don't use the "-m" even the text in the email looks Russian to me.
I personally think that it hat to do with setting on the customers' Exchange settings, but I'm not sure.

All suggestions are welcome!

Cheers,

Renarios

Re: corrupted attachments

renarios — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:04:56 GMT

Hi spex,

Thanks for the hint. I will give it a go!

Cheers,

Renarios

Re: corrupted attachments

harry d brown jr — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:24:53 GMT

What is EXTENSION equal to? Is it ".dat" ? If so, then the user might have a different "default" application attempting to open the attachment. I don't have any default application assigned to open ".dat" files, thus I'm prompted to choose an application to open the attachment.

if this is just a text file, then try changing the EXTENSION to ".txt"

live free or die
harry d brown jr

Re: corrupted attachments

renarios — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:42:26 GMT

Hi Harry,

Originally the extension is (excuse me) .cum (for cumulative file). Because of all firewalls and proxies I alias it to .DAT instead ;^)
We tested by mailing from UNIX to customer;
customer forwards mail including attachment;
They try to load file into forms application (I think it uses SQL*loader on background), which failes.
When I open the attachment with Ultraedit, some line feeds and spaces (just four or five times in fourhudred lines) are dissapeared. It beats me what causes it.

Cheers,

Renarios

Re: corrupted attachments

spex — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:53:45 GMT

Renarios,

You may want to run the file through 'ux2dos' before attaching it so that LF's get translated to CR's & LF's. If you don't have 'ux2dos', 'awk' also works:

awk '{print $0"\r"}' < file_unix > file_dos

PCS

Re: corrupted attachments

renarios — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 08:03:57 GMT

Hi spex,

I do use ux2dos :
$(ux2dos ${DATFILE} | uuencode ${filealias})
, but thanx for the hint.

More and more I begin to think are to be found in exchange. Is anyone feeling exchange goeroe today?

Re: corrupted attachments

spex — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 08:21:00 GMT

Renarios,

I guess I missed that ;-).

I wonder if sending the file as a binary will make a difference. Try compressing or gziping it before you attach it. Of course, the danger here is if the message gets alterted en route, the archive will be corrupt.

PCS

Re: corrupted attachments

Steven E. Protter — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 08:45:18 GMT

Shalom,

Hey my script!

One thing I usually post with that script is this:

It might be your SMTP server eating the attachment.

I developed that script in a lab at my home in Chicago and it worked great. I took it to work and the attachments were not working. The SMPT gateway needed a patch.

SEP

Re: corrupted attachments

renarios — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 09:00:11 GMT

Shalom Steven,

So you noticed your own handwriting ;^).
I altered the code to compress the attachment before mailing it. Have to wait till Tuesday to get a response though.
Our HP-UX servers are updated on regular base, but I don't know about the smart_relay. I will ask some administrators to check it out.

Cheers,

Renarios

Re: corrupted attachments

renarios — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 02:55:16 GMT

Hi Steven,

Our email gateway is a Fedora system.
Can you tell me what your email gateway was and which patch you needed to install?

TIA,

Renarios

Re: corrupted attachments

davedunn77 — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 06:30:14 GMT

Has anoyone discovered the patch that was needed to stop the attachments from being garbled?

We are having this problem when a message is sent in .txt format. If the e-mail is received by a pop3 user the e-mail attachment goes through fine, but when received by an Exchange user, the e-mail attachment is messed up.

Thanks for the help and suggestions so far. It is greatly appreciated.

Re: corrupted attachments

renarios — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 07:20:24 GMT

Hi Dave,

I still have the problem. Because I have to (read must) give it a lower priority, it is still active.

cheers,

Renarios