How to Install Mailx on Linux and Build a Keyword Log Monitoring Script

1. Install Mail Service

Extract the Mailx source package, compile and install it, then apply a patch to fix OpenSSL build errors.

tar -jxf mailx-12.4.tar.bz2 -C /usr/src/ && cd /usr/src/mailx-12.4/

make install UCBINSTALL=/usr/bin/install

patch -p0 < mailx-12.4-openssl_1.0.0_build_fix-1.patch

make install UCBINSTALL=/usr/bin/install

Verify the installation with mailx -V.

Configure /etc/nail.rc with your SMTP credentials:

set from=
set smtp=
set smtp-auth-user=
set smtp-auth-password=
set smtp-auth=login

Test sending an email:

echo '邮件正文'|mailx -v -s "邮件标题" [email protected]

2. Keyword Monitoring Script Development

Create CheckLogs.sh to monitor log files for specified keywords and trigger SendMail.sh when matches are found. Store configuration files in a conf directory (e.g., chklist).

The first execution records the current line count of the target log. Subsequent runs read only newly appended lines and extract keywords such as “error”. Detected keywords cause the mail alert script to run.

Multiple keywords can be monitored, and frequency control can be adjusted as demonstrated in the screenshots.

After successful testing, the system continuously watches logs and sends email alerts for critical events.