Sending E-mail from a Command Prompt Using the IIS SMTP Service

Article ID: 193685 - View products that this article applies to.
This article was previously published under Q193685
We strongly recommend that all users upgrade to Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) version 6.0 running on Microsoft Windows Server 2003. IIS 6.0 significantly increases Web infrastructure security. For more information about IIS security-related topics, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/prodtech/IIS.mspx
(http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/prodtech/IIS.mspx)
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SUMMARY

The Windows NT Option Pack (NTOP) includes a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) service for Internet Information Server (IIS). Also included in the Option Pack is the Windows Script Host (WSH), which is a powerful batch processing language interpreter, allowing administrators to write scripts in Visual Basic Script (VBS) or JScript (JS). Together the SMTP service and WSH can be used to send e-mail from a command line.

MORE INFORMATION

With the SMTP service installed, a new system object named "CDONTS.NewMail" can be used to send mail with a few lines of code.

The following example using VBS and WSH demonstrates how to send -email from a command prompt. Save the code shown below as SENDMAIL.VBS, open a command prompt session. and call the code using the following syntax: 
   CSCRIPT.EXE SENDMAIL.VBS -?

This will return the Help screen that shows the syntax for using the script. This script can be used inside batch files, or for other purposes such as sending alerts from Performance Monitor.

Save the following VBS code as SENDMAIL.VBS: 
   '--------------------------------------------------
   '
   ' Sends email from the local SMTP service using CDONTS objects
   '
   ' Usage:
   '   sendmail -t <to> -f <from> -s "<subject>" -b "<message>"
   '   sendmail [-help|-?]
   '
   '--------------------------------------------------

   Option Explicit
   On Error Resume Next

   Dim objSendMail, oArgs, ArgNum
   Dim strTo, strFrom, strSubject, strBody

   Set oArgs = WScript.Arguments
   ArgNum = 0

   While ArgNum < oArgs.Count
      Select Case LCase(oArgs(ArgNum))
         Case "-to","-t":
            ArgNum = ArgNum + 1
            strTo = oArgs(ArgNum)
         Case "-from","-f":
            ArgNum = ArgNum + 1
            strFrom = oArgs(ArgNum)
         Case "-subject","-s":
            ArgNum = ArgNum + 1
            strSubject = oArgs(ArgNum)
         Case "-body","-b":
            ArgNum = ArgNum + 1
            strBody = oArgs(ArgNum)
         Case "-help","-?":
            Call DisplayUsage
         Case Else:
            Call DisplayUsage
      End Select
      ArgNum = ArgNum + 1
   Wend

   If oArgs.Count=0 Or strTo="" Or strFrom="" Or _
         strSubject="" Or strBody="" Then
      Call DisplayUsage
   Else
      Set objSendMail = CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
         objSendMail.From = strFrom
         objSendMail.To = strTo
         objSendMail.Subject = strSubject
         objSendMail.Body = strBody
         objSendMail.Send
      Set objSendMail = Nothing
   End If

   ' Display the usage for this script
   Sub DisplayUsage
      WScript.Echo "Usage:"
      WScript.Echo "  sendmail -t <to address> -f <from address> -s " & _
         Chr(34) & "<subject>" & Chr(34) & " -b " & Chr(34) & _
         "<message body>" & Chr(34)
      WScript.Echo "  sendmail [-help|-?]"
      WScript.Echo ""
      WSCript.Quit
   End Sub

Properties

Article ID: 193685 - Last Review: June 23, 2005 - Revision: 3.3
APPLIES TO
  • Microsoft Internet Information Services 6.0
  • Microsoft Internet Information Services 5.0
  • Microsoft Internet Information Server 4.0
Keywords: 
kbhowto KB193685
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