Mail¶
We need a basic mail setup to send notifications from ZFS and other systems in case of an error. We use Postfix.
sudo apt install postfix
During setup, configure for an “Internet Site”. We use home.local as the
sending address and smtp.gmail.com:587 as the relay host. Go to
https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords to get a password for “chell mail” and
create the file /etc/postfix/sasl/sasl_passwd with the content:
[smtp.gmail.com]:587 <USERNAME>@gmail.com:<PASSWORD>
This needs to be added to a data bank:
sudo postmap /etc/postfix/sasl/sasl_passwd
In /etc/postfix/main.cf set the line
relayhost = [smtp.gmail.com]:587
Shorten the line with the banner to
smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP
for security reasons. And add the bunch of lines
# Enable SASL authentication
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
# Disallow methods that allow anonymous authentication
smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
# Location of sasl_passwd
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl/sasl_passwd
# Enable STARTTLS encryption
smtp_tls_security_level = encrypt
# Location of CA certificates
smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
Edit aliases file with sudo vi /etc/aliases so it reads:
postmaster: root
admin: root
ubuntu: root
root: <USERNAME>@gmail.com
The run sudo newaliases for the databank file and sudo systemctl restart postfix. Test with a mail that ends with a dot:
sendmail <USERNAME>@gmail.com
From: <USERNAME>@<OTHER_ADDRESS>
Subject: Test mail
This is a test email
This is basic mail setup. We need the mailutils package for further use.
sudo apt install mailutils
Note
This setup will now allow us to send all kinds of mail with
mail -s "<SUBJECT>" the.address@the.address
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