There are many situations in which sending emails from a server can be useful, either because applications require it, or to do monitoring, such as being notified of security updates available on your system or the proper execution of cron tasks.
However, configuring a mail server with postfix, exim or sendmail requires a large number of steps to be performed and a careful configuration, due to all the devices set up to fight spam (including DKIM, SPF, DMARC, static IP and Reverse DNS, white list…), which makes the task very tedious for a simple personal server.
Nevertheless, it is possible to simply use an existing email account, and send via SMTP emails as a traditional email client would.
Until now, I used to use ssmtp for this, but this one is no longer maintained, and it is no longer possible to install it from Debian 10 Buster. We will use msmtp, which is just as easy to use and efficient.
Installation of msmtp
From a Debian based system, you can simply install the following packages:
sudo apt-get install msmtp msmtp-mta
The configuration file is as follows:
sudo nano /etc/msmtprc
Then use the following settings with the IDs and settings of your email provider:
defaults
auth on
tls on
tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
logfile ~/.msmtp.log
account gmail
host smtp.gmail.com
port 587
from username@gmail.com
user username
password password
account default : gmail
Or, with OVH:
defaults
auth on
tls on
tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
logfile ~/.msmtp.log
account ovh
host ssl0.ovh.net
port 587
from username@domain.tld
user username@domain.tld
password password
account default : ovh
Once the file has been saved, we can try to send our first emails.
Test sending emails
It is possible to use msmtp directly to send your email:
echo "Message" | mail -s "Title" <email-adress>
Change the sender’s name
It is possible to define, for each user of your server, a personalized sender name when sending emails:
sudo chfn -f 'Custom name for root' root
sudo chfn -f 'Custom name for user' <user>
Example of use: apticron
If you have a server, you should always be informed of the latest updates available for your system.
If you use a system based on Debian, and you use apt to install or update your packages, the little apticron utility automatically sends you an email as soon as an update is available.
It is installed with:
sudo apt-get install apticron
To indicate your email address, simply change it:
sudo nano /etc/apticron/apticron.conf
Finally, indicate the address at which you wish to receive the notifications:
EMAIL="<your-email>"