Relay email to gmail (msmtp, mailx, sendmail

2018-07-13T12:14:53Z

Ahilborne: If doing this without a restart, we have to explicitly link msmtp to sendmail

== Overview ==
If you're running an alpine from stick and need a way for your program to alert you through a standard gmail account

== Install msmtp ==
<pre>
sudo apk add msmtp
</pre>

== Configuration ==
Create a global configuration, "/etc/msmtprc" with content

<pre>
# Set default values for all following accounts.
defaults
auth on
tls on
tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
syslog on

# Gmail
account gmail
host smtp.gmail.com
port 587
from <your email>
user <your gmail account>
password <your password>

# Set a default account
account default : gmail
aliases /etc/aliases
</pre>
{{note|Please note I've used the '''syslog on''' to send msmtp log to syslog, yet you can use the '''logfile <log_file_path>''' if you prefer to log to a file }}
{{note|Please note the aliases '''/etc/aliases''', this will help for mail/sendmail to redirect email to local user (like root) to an external email }}

== Sendmail alias ==
By default alpine comes with busybox sendmail, msmtp can act as a sendmail alternative including syntax and option, there I create a local.d script to overwrite the busybox link to msmtp.

Create a file "/etc/local.d/msmtp-sendmail.start" with below content:
<pre>
#!/bin/sh
ln -sf /usr/bin/msmtp /usr/sbin/sendmail
</pre>

Make it executable
<pre>
sudo chmod +x /etc/local.d/msmtp-sendmail.start
</pre>

and run it first time through
<pre>
sudo /etc/local.d/msmtp-sendmail.start
</pre>

== Mailx and aliases ==
Install mailx for program that uses mail (like apcupsd for monitoring UPS events)
<pre>
sudo apk add mailx
</pre>

Create an "/etc/aliases" file with content:
<pre>
root: <your external email where all email to root will be sent>

default: <default email>
</pre>

== Testing ==
Test an email, run
<pre>
echo -e "Subject: Do you love alpine?\nYes, I do!\n" | msmtp root
</pre>
{{note|'''root''' only work if you've setup /etc/aliases, otherwise put any email adress you can check instead of root}}

== Saving the configuration ==
<pre>
sudo lbu ci
</pre>

Hope it helps.

[[Category:Monitoring]]
[[Category:Mail]]

Alpine Linux - User contributions [en]

Relay email to gmail (msmtp, mailx, sendmail