Usually, you do not need to setup an email server under Linux desktop operating system. Most GUI email clients (such as Thunderbird) supports Gmail POP3 and IMAP configurations. But, how do you send mail via the standard or /usr/bin/mail user agents or a shell script? Programs such as sendmail / postfix / exim can be configured as a gmail smarthost but they are largely overkill for this use.
You can use gmail as a smart host to send all messages from your Linux / UNIX desktop systems. You need to use a simple program called ssmtp. It accepts a mail stream on standard input with recipients specified on the command line and synchronously forwards the message to the mail transfer agent of a mailhub for the mailhub MTA to process. Failed messages are placed in dead.letter in the sender's home directory.
Install ssmtp
Type the following command under CentOS / RHEL / Red Hat / Fedora Linux:
# yum install ssmtp
Type the following command under Debian / Ubuntu Linux:
# apt-get update && apt-get install ssmtp
Configure gmail as a smarthost
Open /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf, enter:
# vi /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf
Update file with the following settings:
AuthUser=vivek@gmail.com AuthPass=Your-Gmail-Password FromLineOverride=YES mailhub=smtp.gmail.com:587 UseSTARTTLS=YES
Also, make sure you disable Sendmail:
# service sendmail stop
# chkconfig sendmail off
# mkdir /root/.bakup
# mv /usr/sbin/sendmail /root/.bakup
# ln -s /usr/local/ssmtp/sbin/ssmtp /usr/sbin/sendmail
Now, you can use mail / mailx command to send email messages. You can also write a shell script to backup your files and email to somewhere else (see below). You can test settings using following syntax:
$ echo "This is a test" | mail -s "Test" vivek@nixcraft.co.in
A note about sSMTP
sSMTP works well for desktop systems, but it is not a replacement for Sendmail / Postfix / Exim / Qmail for email server environment. This software is perfect for a single user system.
Further readings:
- man page ssmtp
- A shell script to backup directories & files and email them as .tar.gz file.
- Alpine is a text-based e-mail client. It supports POP3 and IMAP configurations.
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- Last Updated: Apr/22/2009
{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
Typo in the header: relay.
Thanks for the heads-up.
Thanks for the info. Today I was searching for a way out for logwatch to send email via using external SMTP without installing sendmail or other MTA in my cache server and then after an hour I got this solution. Thanks
hi, thanks for the wonderful tip..
i went through the conf file…….but i m stuck somewhere in between…
should i update this file adding the lines you hav provided..and what abt the disabling Sendmail…I can find those mentioned lines..
Thanks in advance.
another good program like sstmp are email (encrypted email not electronic email !! ) you could see at http://www.cleancode.org/projects/email it have similar features than ssmtp plus the file attachment by command line.
Cheers and happy shell mailing ! xD
Yes, you should update configuration by adding appropriate values.
Command related to sendmail disabling works on RHEL / Fedora and CentOS.
HTH
@Ulver,
Thanks for sharing email project.
Hello !
thanks for sharing your knowledge.
I am using Ubuntu 8.04.
when i opened .conf file i got the following script:
#
# Config file for sSMTP sendmail
#
# The person who gets all mail for userids < 1000
# Make this empty to disable rewriting.
root=postmaster
# The place where the mail goes. The actual machine name is required no
# MX records are consulted. Commonly mailhosts are named mail.domain.com
mailhub=mail
# Where will the mail seem to come from?
#rewriteDomain=
# The full hostname
hostname=nee-pc
# Are users allowed to set their own From: address?
# YES – Allow the user to specify their own From: address
# NO – Use the system generated From: address
#FromLineOverride=YES
~
~
Now how to update this file with tha changes you provided??
pls tell me!
thanka in advance!
thanks, no worries
Yes, you have to add changes provided by me. If there is already config line update it; otherwise just append new config line.
Thanks a lot Vivek for the tip that you have given us and please continue the good work
:)
Thanks for the tips
I am using this already. I read this earlier here http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2008/10/21/sending-email-from-your-system-with-ssmtp/. I have also seen some articles in tombuntu referring to Vivek. Thanks to read this once again to refresh :D.
This is perfect us on consumer Internet lines where SMTP ports are blocked by ISP. Brilliant! Thanks, Vivek.
Love this blog! I look after around 100 linux servers. There have been many useful tips and contributions is this blog.
Really useful!
;-)
Thanks!
easy to use and interesting
I use MSMTP for bellsouth where they accept mail from CLIENTS but not from sendmail.
http://msmtp.sourceforge.net/
You just replace sendmail with this and it looks like a mail client to your ISP.
Good man…
I love this blog……
what about creating a .forward file in your /home/myname instead of all this. And you can add as many emails as you like… homename@gmail.com,myworkname@work.com
I have a problem sending mail to the same domain.
For example, I have foo.ru configured in Google Apps. From 1@foo.ru I can send email to 2@bar.ru, but not to 2@foo.ru. Can you help me resolve this problem?
Sorry, just big delay in mail delivery. Everything works fine!
HI , i made the above configurations as stated but when i a m sending mail to test then the following error is being showed:
/usr/sbin/sendmail: No such file or directory
“/root/dead.letter” 9/232
. . . message not sent.
please help
Great! I can now email directly from my NSLU2 (Slug).
Ideally, I would like a script to email me my system logs (cron, login, etc)
Any suggestions?
Many thanks!
Thanks for the Info! I have a Debian Squeeze system and when I tried to install ssmtp I couldn’t because exim4 was already installed. aptitude gave me the option to uninstall it, but I decided to try and use exim4 with gmail, so I ended in http://wiki.debian.org/GmailAndExim4 and followed those steps. It now works perfectly!
Awesome .. exactly what I needed for the machines at home .. I refuse to use my ISP’s unauthenticated mail server, mostly because it’s a bit of a blackhole.. and I’ve been moving away from using mail on my hosted servers … most stuff has been ported to gmail servers.
Thanks for the quick and easy fix to using gmail as my smarthost!
Dear Sir/ Madam,
Recently I have configured sandmail on Linux RH 9, and capable to send and receive mail from outlook express. But problem is domain name show diffenence in outlook express Inbox , that is : but I have configured domain name “bgdnyk.com” on linux send mail server.
Could you please asists, how can I get accurate domain name in outlook express.
OMG you are the best if it weren’t for you i’d still be messing around with nc/sendmail (sendmail.mc,m4)/telnet
I have a single user comp (root+my user) and this is perfect
TO: Sergio Montini
[Ideally, I would like a script to email me my system logs (cron, login, etc)]
Here is a line of code that may help. It was pulled from Linux Pro Magazine August2009 issue, page 61. You should be able to add it to your backup script that cron launches. You’ll probably need to tweak it to suit your needs and not copy it verbatim, but this is the basic idea. Rather than sending the list of files in a backup directory, you could also send the contents of a log file.
ls -l /my-backups/’date +%y-%m-%d’ | mail -s “daily backup report” your@email.address
Is anyone know how to config ssmtp to rewrite the RCPT TO header? Thanks.