Watch

Let’s install on the server msmtp and logwatch, in order to get some notifications about its status.

1. Install msmtp

  1. Let’s make sure first that we have the right packages installed:

    apt purge --yes mailutils mailutils-common
apt autoremove --yes
apt install --yes msmtp msmtp-mta bsd-mailx

  2. Create the config file /etc/msmtprc:

    MAIL_DOMAIN="notify.example.org"
MAIL_HOST="smtp.${MAIL_DOMAIN}"
MAIL_FROM="$(hostname)@${MAIL_DOMAIN}"

cat <<EOF > /etc/msmtprc
account smtp
maildomain $MAIL_DOMAIN
host $MAIL_HOST
from $MAIL_FROM
tls_starttls on
set_from_header on

account default : smtp
aliases /etc/aliases.msmtp
syslog LOG_MAIL
EOF
    We assume that we are using a :simple-smtp-server.adoc.

  3. Create the config file /etc/aliases.msmtp, like this:

    FORWARD_ADDRESS="user@gmail.com"
cat << EOF > /etc/aliases.msmtp
default: $FORWARD_ADDRESS
EOF

    All emails from the system will be forwarded to the default address. It can also be a comma separated list of addresses.

  4. Let’s test it:

    mail --help
mail -s Test1 -- root <<< "Test 1"

2. Install logwatch

  1. Install it:

    apt install --yes logwatch libdate-manip-perl

  2. Create config file /etc/logwatch/conf/logwatch.conf:

    cat <<EOF > /etc/logwatch/conf/logwatch.conf
Range = between -7 days and -1 days
EOF

    Run it for the last 7 days.

  3. Make it run weekly, instead of daily:

    mv /etc/cron.daily/00logwatch /etc/cron.weekly/

  4. Test it:

    /etc/cron.weekly/00logwatch