Difference between revisions of "Msmtp"
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== Cronie default email client == | == Cronie default email client == | ||
− | {{Out of date|Arch uses [[systemd/ | + | {{Out of date|Arch uses [[systemd/Timers]] instead of cronie}} |
To make {{Pkg|cronie}} use msmtp rather than sendmail, make sure {{Pkg|msmtp-mta}} is installed, or edit the {{ic|cronie.service}} systemd unit: | To make {{Pkg|cronie}} use msmtp rather than sendmail, make sure {{Pkg|msmtp-mta}} is installed, or edit the {{ic|cronie.service}} systemd unit: |
Revision as of 14:47, 10 October 2014
msmtp is a very simple and easy to use SMTP client with fairly complete sendmail compatibility.
Contents
Installing
msmtp can be installed with the package msmtp that is available in the official repositories. Additionally install msmtp-mta that creates a sendmail alias to msmtp.
Basic setup
The following is an example of a msmtp configuration (the file is based on the packaged, regular-user, example located at /usr/share/doc/msmtp/msmtprc-user.example
; the system configuration file belongs at /etc/msmtprc
and it's example is located at /usr/share/doc/msmtp/msmtprc-system.example
):
~/.msmtprc
# 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 587 from username@gmail.com user username password plain-text-password # A freemail service account freemail host smtp.freemail.example from joe_smith@freemail.example ... # Set a default account account default : gmail
The user configuration file must be explicitly readable/writeable to only it's owner or msmtp will fail:
$ chmod 600 ~/.msmtprc
To avoid saving the password in plain text in the configuration file, use passwordeval to launch an external program. This example using Gnu PG is commonly used to perform decryption of a password:
echo -e "password\n" | gpg --encrypt -o .msmtp-gmail.gpg # enter id (email...)
~/.msmtprc
passwordeval "gpg --quiet --for-your-eyes-only --no-tty --decrypt ~/.msmtp-gmail.gpg"
Using the mail command
To send mails using the mail
command you must install the package s-nail. Either install msmtp-mta or edit /etc/mail.rc
to set sendmail client:
/etc/mail.rc
set sendmail=/usr/bin/msmtp
A .msmtprc
file will need to be in the home of every user who want to send mail or alternatively the system wide /etc/msmtprc
can be used.
msmtp also understands aliases. Add the following line to the defaults section of msmtprc or your local configuration file:
/etc/msmtprc
aliases /etc/aliases
and create an aliases file in /etc
/etc/aliases
# Example aliases file # Send root to Joe and Jane root: joe_smith@example.com, jane_chang@example.com # Send everything else to admin default: admin@domain.example
Test functionality
The account option (--account=,-a
tells which account to use as sender:
$ echo "hello there username." | msmtp -a default username@domain.com
Or, with the addresses in a file:
To: username@domain.com From: username@gmail.com Subject: A test Hello there.
$ cat test.mail | msmtp -a default <username>@domain.com
Cronie default email client
To make cronie use msmtp rather than sendmail, make sure msmtp-mta is installed, or edit the cronie.service
systemd unit:
/etc/systemd/system/cronie.service.d/msmtp.conf
[Service] ExecStart= ExecStart=/usr/bin/crond -n -m '/usr/bin/msmtp -t'
Then you must tell cronie or msmtp what your email address is, either by:
- Add to
/etc/msmtprc
:aliases /etc/aliases
and create/etc/aliases
:your_username: email@address.com
— OR —.
- Add a
MAILTO
line to the crontab:MAILTO=email@address.com
Miscellaneous
Other details.
Practical password management
The password
directive may be omitted. In that case, if the account in question has auth
set to a legitimate value other than off
, invoking msmtp from an interactive shell will ask for the password before sending mail. msmtp will not prompt if it has been called by another type of application, such as Mutt.
There is a solution for such cases: the --passwordeval
parameter.
You can call msmtp to use an external keyring tool like gpg:
msmtp --passwordeval 'gpg -d mypwfile.gpg'
If gpg prompt for the passphrase cannot be issued (e.g. when called from Mutt) then start the gpg-agent before.
A simple hack to start the agent is to execute a external command in your muttrc.
` command `
syntax to execute external commandsFor example, you can put something like the following in your muttrc
muttrc
set my_msmtp_pass=`gpg -d mypwfile.gpg`
Mutt will execute this when it starts, gpg-agent will cache your password, msmtp will be happy and you can send mail.
If you cannot use a keyring tool for any reason, you may want to use the password directly. There is a patched version msmtp-pwpatchedAUR in the AUR that provides the --password
parameter. Note that it is a huge security flaw, since any user connected to you machine can see the parameter of any command (in the /proc filesystem for example).
If this is not desired, an alternative is to place passwords in ~/.netrc
, a file that can act as a common pool for msmtp, OfflineIMAP, and associated tools.
Using msmtp offline
Although msmtp is great, it requires that you be online to use it. This isn't ideal for people on laptops with intermittent connections to the Internet or dialup users. Several scripts have been written to remedy this fact, collectively called msmtpqueue.
The scripts are installed under /usr/share/doc/msmtp/msmtpqueue
. You might want to copy the scripts to a convenient location on your computer, (/usr/local/bin
is a good choice).
Finally, change your MUA to use msmtp-enqueue.sh instead of msmtp when sending e-mail. By default, queued messages will be stored in ~/.msmtpqueue
. To change this location, change the QUEUEDIR=$HOME/.msmtpqueue
line in the scripts (or delete the line, and export the QUEUEDIR variable in .bash_profile
like so: export QUEUEDIR="$XDG_DATA_HOME/msmtpqueue"
).
When you want to send any mail that you've created and queued up run:
$ /usr/local/bin/msmtp-runqueue.sh
Adding /usr/local/bin
to your PATH can save you some keystrokes if you're doing it manually. The README file that comes with the scripts has some handy information, reading it is recommended.
Vim syntax highlighting
The msmtp source distribution includes a msmtprc
highlighting script for Vim. Install it from ./scripts/vim/msmtp.vim
.
Send mail with PHP using msmtp
Look for sendmail_path option in your php.ini
and edit like this:
sendmail_path = "/usr/bin/msmtp -C /path/to/your/config -t"
Note that you can not use a user configuration file (ie: one under ~/) if you plan on using msmtp as a sendmail replacement with php or something similar. In that case just create /etc/msmtprc, and remove your user configuration (or not if you plan on using it for something else). Also make sure it's readable by whatever you're using it with (php, django, etc...)
From the msmtp manual: Accounts defined in the user configuration file override accounts from the system configuration file. The user configuration file must have no more permissions than user read/write
So it's impossible to have a conf file under ~/ and have it still be readable by the php user.
To test it place this file in your php enabled server or using php-cli.
<?php mail("your@email.com", "Test email from PHP", "msmtp as sendmail for PHP"); ?>
Troubleshooting
Issues with TLS
If you see the following message:
msmtp: TLS certificate verification failed: the certificate hasn't got a known issuer
it probably means your tls_trust_file is not right.
Just follow the fine manual. It explains you how to find out the server certificate issuer of a given smtp server. Then you can explore the /usr/share/ca-certificates/
directory to find out if by any chance, the certificate you need is there. If not, you will have to get the certificate on your own.
If you are trying to send mail through GMail and are receiving this error, have a look at this thread or just use the second GMail example above.
If you are completely desperate, but are 100% sure you are communicating with the right server, you can always temporarily disable the cert check:
$ msmtp --tls-certcheck off
Server sent empty reply
If you get a "server sent empty reply" error, add the following line to ~/.msmtprc:
tls_starttls off