Send Emails to Yourself to Update Debian-Based Machines

WORK IN PROGRESS - INSTRUCTIONS UNFINISHED



Securing your homelab should be your top priority. One effective measure to bolster security is to regularly update both your server and its virtual machine instances whenever security patches become available.  While setting up a cronjob to handle system updates is an option, integrating MSMTP into your setup can significantly enhance both your homelab experience and its overall security by informing you what packages are available to install via email. Let's delve into how MSMTP can transform your homelab management, especially in keeping you informed about impending updates.

What you will need to know or have:

  • MSMTP
  • Google Mail Account
  • BASH scripting
  • HTML
  • Cron

Steps:

  1. Setup Google App Access
  2. Install and Configure MSMTP
  3. Send Email via BASH script
  4. Automation using Cronjob

Setup Google App Access

We need to configure our Google account to use App Passwords to allow MSMTP to authenticate and use its email address and SMTP gateway to send emails.


To enable App Password you have to setup a 2nd Multi-Factor Authentication. 


Once enabled hhyou can create an App Password and we will use this 16 character password in our configuration file later



Install and Configure MSMTP

Install MSMTP (Debian, Ubuntu)

$ sudo apt-get install msmtp
 

Create msmtp configuration file in your home directory

$ sudo vim ~/.msmtprc

Contents of .msmtprc file:

# Set default values for all following accounts.
defaults
auth           on
tls            on
tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
logfile        ~/.msmtp.log

# Gmail
account        gmail
host           smtp.gmail.com
port           465
tls_starttls   off
from           USERNAME@gmail.com
user           USERNAME
password       PASSWORD 

# Set a default account
account default: gmail

Send test notification email to your email address

$ echo "Test" | msmtp -a default USERNAME@gmail.com 

You should have receieved an email to the specified email address in the command above

 

Send Email via BASH script

 

We will create a BASH script that will insert text data we retrieve from updating commands into an HTML file.  Once created we will send it using MSMTP.

#!/bin/bash
 
 
Edit permissions on  configuration file
$ echo "Test" | msmtp -a default USERNAME@gmail.com
 
Edit permissions on  configuration file

 
Automation using Cronjob
 
Edit permissions on  configuration file
$ echo "Test" | msmtp -a default USERNAME@gmail.com
































Comments











Post a Comment























Popular posts from this blog









SOC Analyst: Phishing Email Analysis




















Image







Everyone is looking to level up in their career, and getting a job interview or offer email can be exciting. But sometimes, those emails aren’t what they seem, they’re fake recruitment scams trying to trick you. I came across a perfect example and want to show what I did to confirm my suspicions and what steps I took to report the email, and its domain.      Steps we will take to confirm, and take action: 1) General Social Engineering Red Flags 2) Context and Content Integrity Check 3) Domain Investigation 4) Certificate Investigation 5) Email Header Analysis 6) Reporting the Email Tools we use and/or discuss - VirusTotal - WHOIS.com - MXToolbox - Joe's Sandbox - PhishTank - OpenPhish General Social Engineering Red Flags The email contains no links to their organization's homepage, easy online contact information, nor LinkedIn page. Furthermore, by searching for the official website of Evernow and confirming their logo is the same, they are using a different domain for th...








Read more










Common SPL Commands




















Image







  NOTE:  I am using datasets provided by Hailie Shaw's " Splunk: Zero to Power User "  Udemy course. My results will vary from your own test and live  production datasets. Do not perform the queries in this article on  equipment and services you do not own, have permission, or do not fully  understand what the query does. Common SPL Commands Here are some command SPL commands that you will typically use in your queries to narrow down events in your searches.  Source:  SPL2 Command Quick Reference  stats           Calculates aggregate statistic over the incoming search results set. eval             Calculates an expression and puts the resulting value into a search results field. table           Displays selected fields in a table format rex               Command to ...








Read more










Endlessh: SSH Honeypot Analysis




















Image







This lab we will use Kali Linux, tcpdump, netcat, NMap, Wireshark, and Hydra. We will be analyzing traffic being sent to a server running endlessh, a honeypot service to thwart or delay automated scans and (possibly) bruteforce SSH attacks.  Purpose:  1) Assess what endlessh is successful at doing 2) Confirming what are its limitation in thwarting attacks 3) What an adversary would face 4) What we could implement in substitute or in addition to further dissuade threats to our network. Skeeto's Github repo of Endlessh Part 1: Set up our victim server Part 2:  Set up Honeypot service Part 3: Attacking and Analysis  Part 4: Closing Notes








Read more