justkelvin/emails_from_ubuntu.md

## emails_from_ubuntu.md

      
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    Setting up email with SMTP on Ubuntu/Debian Servers

I used to sift trough my shell history and bookmarks every time I set up a new
testing server in order to be able to send mails. So this should help...
Be aware don't use ssmtp anymore. It's unmaintained and has been removed
from Debian
and Ubuntu will most definitely follow suit.
Install msmtp

First we need the awesome program called msmtp to route all the server's mail through a standard SMTP server.
sudo apt-get install msmtp msmtp-mta mailutils
Set up msmtp

sudo nano /etc/msmtprc
# Set default values for all following accounts.
defaults

# Use the mail submission port 587 instead of the SMTP port 25.
port 587

# Always use TLS.
tls on

# Set a list of trusted CAs for TLS. The default is to use system settings, but
# you can select your own file.
tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

# The SMTP server of your ISP
account isp
host mail.isp.example
from smithjoe@isp.example
auth on
user 12345

# Set default account to isp
account default: isp

# Map local users to mail addresses
aliases /etc/aliases
The above is based on the example. The
program has many more authentication methods.
Install and set up mailx

In order to be able to use the mail command wee need to install mailx
sudo apt-get install bsd-mailx
Set mail transport agent to use msmtp
sudo nano /etc/mail.rc
append the following:
set mta=/usr/bin/msmtp
Set up aliases

We need to link system users with email addresses in order for system users to receive mails from cronjobs.
sudo nano /etc/aliases
# Send root to Jane
root: jane_doe@example.com
   
# Send everything else to admin
default: admin@domain.example
sudo nano /etc/mail.rc
append:
alias root root<jane_doe@example.com>
Emails are now sent to this address if e.g. a cronjob fails. Also a general
fallback address is used if messages don't belong to root. Of course more users
can be set.
Test it!

echo "Hello World" | msmtp -d bob@example.com
Test sending a mail to root
echo "Testing msmtp from ${HOSTNAME} with mail command" | mail -s "hi root" root
Test sending a mail to another email adress
echo "Testing msmtp from ${HOSTNAME} with mail command" | mail -s "hi there" bob@example.com
Links

https://marlam.de/msmtp/
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Msmtp