Shell – Program to Send Notification Email When a Process Finishes

There is "NewMail FIFO Path" configuration option in alpine. Quoting the help:

You may have Alpine create a FIFO special file (also called a named pipe) where it will send a one-line message each time a new message is received in the current folder, the INBOX, or any open Stayopen Folders. To protect against two different Alpines both writing to the same FIFO, Alpine will only create the FIFO and write to it if it doesn't already exist.

So, I set the option to '/tmp/alpine.fifo', and wrote simple utility to read messages from the FIFO and invoke 'notify-send':

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <unistd.h>

#define FIFO_NAME "/tmp/alpine.fifo"

int main(void)
{   
    char s[512];
    char cmd[512];
    int num;
    int fd = open(FIFO_NAME, O_RDONLY);
    do {
        if ((num = read(fd, s, 300)) == -1)
            perror("read");
        else {
            s[num] = '\0';
            sprintf(cmd, "notify-send -t 0 'New mail:' '%s'", s);
            system(cmd);
        }
    } while (num > 0);

    return 0;
}

Save it to alpine-notifier.c, and compile with 'gcc alpine-notifier.c -o alpine-notifier' command. Start 'alpine-notifier' after alpine is started. Enjoy pop-up notifications.

There are 3 ways to accomplish the sending of an SMS message from a server and/or application.

1. Setup your own gateway

   If you google for "sms gateway" you'll find a large list of applications that you can setup which will provide this capability. You can also take an old cell phone and a PC and set them up using this tutorial titled: Setting up an SMS Gateway to create your own SMS gateway.

2. Use a ready made service

   There are service providers that offer this capability (typically for a fee). Here are a couple of them:

   fee
   • http://www.esendex.co.uk/
   • http://www.twilio.com/
   free
   • http://www.kannel.org/

   These providers often provide a library and/or API, such as this one from twilio, so that you can integrate them more easily into your application if needed.

3. Send an email to your provider's SMS gateway

   Most providers (Verizon, AT&T, etc.) provide the ability to send an SMS message to your phone using the <phonenumber>@provider.com. Wikipedia also has a pretty exhaustive list of SMS gateways.