Outgoing EmailΒΆ

For a simple, outgoing only email service, ssmtp is probably the easiest to setup. This can send email through your institutions smtp relay, or if you’re in a pinch, gmail can be used. In the later case, it is necessary to use an existing gmail account to authenticate. If setting up several machines, the same account can be used, but there are benefits to creating a separate gmail account for each machine - primarily to make it a bit simpler to identify where the mail comes from.

sudo apt-get install ssmtp

Then edit /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf something like:

root=GMAIL_ACCOUNT@gmail.com
mailhub=smtp.gmail.com:587
rewriteDomain=
hostname=GMAIL_ACCOUNT@gmail.com
FromLineOverride=YES
UseSTARTTLS=YES
AuthUser=GMAIL_ACCOUNT
AuthPass=GMAIL_PASSWORD

The downside is that all emails will come from the same account (GMAIL_ACCOUNT@gmail.com).

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Numbers 083094 and 1430508.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.