Re: Upgrading from RHEL5x to RHEL 7x

[Bob Proulx]

Prasad Kumar wrote:
> We are upgrading from RHEL 5.x to RHEL 7x.
>...
> Now even after we installed uuencode from shareutils , the same
> command is not working in RHEL 7 linux.
>
> We get attachment as Junk Characters in the Email body for any
> attachment we send. This is happening with mail command used like
> below.
> 
> $ uuencode Attachement_file.pdf  Attachements.pdf |mail -s "This is 
> Attachment Mail" address@hidden

I don't have easy access to test systems for RHEL 5 and 7 and
therefore can't easily try to recreate this problem.  But it seems
likely to me that the problem may just as easily be in the mail part
of the command.

> Can some one let me know what is this issue and how to resolve this.

Please reduce the problem size.  Please try uuencoding a small test
file on both systems and comparing the output produced.  Then if the
output is the same you know the problem is not the uuencode but the
mail side of things.  On the other hand if they are differen then
there will be a very small test case that can be shared in which to
further debug the problem.

  umask 02
  echo "Now is the time" > testfile1
  uuencode testfile1 testfile1 > output1

  cat output1
    begin 664 testfile1
    03F]W(&ES('1H92!T:6UE"@``
    `
    end

Hopefully a small test like that on both systems will show that the
output of uuencode is the same on both systems.  If not then we would
want to know the versions of each.

Additionally to look only at the mail side of the problem you can test
by creating a test file to mail using your problem file on your
working RHEL 5 system.

  uuencode Attachement_file.pdf Attachements.pdf > uuencode.data1
  md5sum uuencode.data1
    ... save this ...

Mail it from the RHEL 7 system.

  mail -s "This is Attachment Mail" address@hidden < uuencode.data1

Then copy that file to the RHEL 7 system that you suspect of problems.
Verify that the copy is correct be comparing the md5sum.  Then mail it
from there.

    ...copy file to RHEL 7 system ...
  md5sum uuencode.data1
    ... compare to verify that the copy was identical ...
  mail -s "This is Attachment Mail" address@hidden < uuencode.data1

If this second mail message is corrupted as you describe then again
you know the problem is in the mail side of things and not the
uuencode side of things since the file will have been identical in
both places.

Bob