How do I use variables in bash to output to a file and to a mail body with sendmail

Question

The idea is to automate WordPress installs via Plesk.

I've got Plesk setup with a cronjob to download the latest.tar.gz from wordpress.com and extract it every morning and now I'm trying to get the database creation side of things automated.

I have the following bash script:

#!/bin/bash/

#To whoever is working on this
#this script simply sets up the DATABASE for the new domain added to the server
#it then logs it, mails the details and clears the log


genpasswd() {
 local pass=`cat /dev/urandom | tr -cd "[:punct:]" | head -c 2`
    echo "$pass"
}

echo $NEW_DOMAIN_NAME >> /usr/games/newdomain.txt
DOMAINNAME=`echo $NEW_DOMAIN_NAME | grep -oE '/[^/]+' | cut -c6- | rev | cut -c4- | rev`
rndChr=$(genpasswd)

CHAR2=${$DOMAINNAME:1:1}
CHAR4=${$DOMAINNAME:3:1}

echo $CHAR2$CHAR4 >> /usr/games/passChar.txt

#get our db stuff
DATABASENAME='exsite_'$DOMAINNAME
DATABASEUSER='exsite_'$DOMAINNAME
DATABASEPASS='[exSite_'$CHAR2$rndChr$CHAR4']'


#create our mail content
CONTENTS="<strong>New MySQL Database created</strong> - <i>see the login details below.<i><p><strong>dbname</strong>    $DATABASENAME<br><strong>dbuser</strong>    $DATABASEUSER<br><strong>dbpass<strong> $DATABASEPASS"

#log it
echo -e $CONTENTS > /usr/games/dbLog.txt


#mail it
sendMail() {
cat << 'EOF' - /usr/games/dbLog.txt | /usr/sbin/sendmail -t
To: [email protected]
From: Enterprise
Reply-to: [email protected]
Subject: [DB Info] for $NEW_DOMAIN_NAME on enterprise.exsite.co
Content-Type: text/html

EOF

printf "STATUS: Mail sent!"

}

if [[ $(sendMail) ]]
then 
    printf "STATUS: Doing mail thing!"
else
    printf "STATUS: MAIL-FAIL!!"
fi

#clear dbLog.txt
exit

Two problems are occuring but I don't understand why;

The CHAR2 and CHAR4 variables don't seem to pick up the 2nd and 4th characters of $DOMAINNAME - they just output empty into passChat.txt

$NEW_DOMAIN_NAME goes to newdomain.txt but then the next line where I try to return just the 2nd level domain seems to fail. It was working at an earlier point but it's not now. I hadn't changed that part though.

Answer 1

Assuming you want to get "mydomain" whether you are given any of: "mydomain.com", "www.mydomain.com", "mail.secure.mydomain.com", ...

get_domain_name() {
    local IFS=.
    set -- $1
    local n=$(($# - 1))
    echo ${!n}
}

get_domain foo.bar.baz.qux

baz

---

The proper way to check the results of your sendmail function is with a lot less syntax:

if sendmail
then echo OK
else echo uh oh
fi

if checks the exit status of a command. Note that [[ is a bash builtin command (that requires its last argument to be ]]) -- at a bash prompt, type help [[ if

---

In your sendmail function, you use cat << 'EOF' -- that effectively single-quotes the entire here-doc. Any variables will not be substituted.

You appear to want to contatenate the heredoc, then stdin, then a named file, and then pipe all that to sendmail. You'll need a bit more syntax to do it: use the { grouping } braces to concatenate the info, then pipe the result to sendmail

sendMail() {
    {
        cat <<- HEADERS
            To: [email protected]
            From: Enterprise
            Reply-to: [email protected]
            Subject: [DB Info] for $NEW_DOMAIN_NAME on enterprise.exsite.co
            Content-Type: text/html

            HEADERS
        cat -
        cat /usr/bin/games/dbLog.txt
    } | /usr/sbin/sendmail -t && echo "STATUS: Mail sent!"
}

Note here I used a heredoc with <<- to allow the use of leading tabs to indent document. bash is strict about only leading tabs, not spaces, so be careful about that.

---

Are you aware that printf does not append a newline to the outputted string? All your messages are going to be squished together on one line.