Getting email off your Linux server with ssmtp and yandex

A quick note to self about configuration of servers with ssmtp and yandex mail service (any other would work too, of course). I keep forgetting how it is done and keep spending time looking about so here goes the summary.

Install ssmtp package, if missing, install also bsd-mailx.

Configuration for ssmtp goes into /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf

MailHub=smtp.yandex.ru:587 # Provider SMTP server hostname and port
UseStartTLS=YES # Secure connection (SSL/TLS)
FromLineOverride=YES # Force the From: line
Hostname=example.com # The name of this host
RewriteDomain=example.com # The host the mail appears to be coming from
Root=webmaster@example.com # Redirect mail for root@ to webmaster@example.com
AuthUser=webmaster@example.com # Provider mail account
AuthPass=password # The password for the mail account

Note that it is not UseTLS anymore but UseStartTLS, otherwise you’ll get

May 25 18:47:18 example sSMTP[315]: Creating SSL connection to host
May 25 18:47:18 example sSMTP[315]: SSL connection using (null)
May 25 18:47:18 example sSMTP[315]: Cannot open smtp.yandex.ru:587

Now all of the accounts that send email must be mentioned in the /etc/ssmtp/revaliases file and be mapped to this existing account at the provider:

root:webmaster@example.com:smtp.yandex.ru
www-data:webmaster@example.com:smtp.yandex.ru
cron:webmaster@example.com:smtp.yandex.ru

Now we have a working configuration but the password for the service is exposed in a world-readable config file. To fix that, we create a new group:

groupadd ssmtp

Change the ownership of both the config file and the sSMTP binary to this group:

chown :ssmtp /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf

chown :ssmtp /usr/sbin/ssmtp

Set the SGID bit for the binary so that others invoking it get the proper permissions:

chmod g+s /usr/sbin/ssmtp

And restrict the permissions of the config file:

chmod 640 /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf

Now everything should work like a charm… unless I forgot something again :)… -->

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IMAP with Maildir gotcha: No such file or directory

An interesting gotcha wasted me quite a bit of time and frustration last evening. After installing OTRS I went to configure the email delivery for tickets. I created a new virtual user, gave it a password and so it was all set. And it did not work when I tried to fetch the mail from OTRS. The message of OTRS itself did not help at all being very generic but the server reported this:

Feb 11 14:19:59 mail imapd-ssl: Connection, ip=[x.x.x.x]
Feb 11 14:19:59 mail imapd-ssl: chdir example.com/otrs/: No such file or directory
Feb 11 14:19:59 mail imapd-ssl: otrs@example.com: No such file or directory

It was hard to imagine a more cryptic message. I could not understand what could be wrong. And why would the server try to chdir into some strange directory. I flushed, changed passwords, tried all sorts of protocols, nothing helped. At a certain point I typed in a wrong password and the message changed to the very familiar “user login failed”. And then the realization hit me.

You just need the directory, you know. Maildir means there must be a directory for the IMAP server to look into. That’s what it tells me! IMAP says that it cannot find the directory where the messages should be. And sure enough, the Maildir directory is not there. Who would create it? Silly me.

And, of course, after the fact you remember it all: always send a welcome message to the new IMAP users so that the mailbox or Maildir is created for them… Hard to remember though when you don’t create new mail users so often.… -->

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Moving email from one IMAP server to another

Ah, the power of tools! What do you do when you want to move lots and lots of email between two IMAP servers? Sure, you could open them both in Thunderbird and drag-and-drop messages. It would simply take forever and you would be transmitting messages first to your computer and then back to another server. And Thunderbird has a bad habit of timing out. There is a better way.

Login to the server (or you can do it actually from client if transferring back and force is okay). Get mutt. Then open the source mailbox like this:

mutt -f imaps://albert%40example.com@imap.gmail.com/%5BGmail%5D/All%20Mail

and wait for mutt to load the headers of the email. Once it is ready, select all messages by pressing T and entering ~A. Save the messages to your target server by pressing ;s (if you want to move the mail) or ;C (if you want a copy) and giving the destination IMAP server:

imaps://albert%40example.com@mail.example.com/INBOX

And watch the magic of UNIX tools unfold :)… -->

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Tag Archives: email

Getting email off your Linux server with ssmtp and yandex

Moving email from one IMAP server to another