sSMTP and gmail
Tags: freebsd, software
According to its man-page, ssmtp is a “send-only sendmail emulator”, hence
allowing your machine to send, say, status reports via mail without the need
for sendmail or any other MTA.
ssmtp is simple to use, simple to install and works very well. I use it on my file-server: Without further ado, several scripts and programs (such as smartmoontools) can now send me their reports directly to a given mail address.
FreeBSD users just cd to /usr/ports/mail/ssmtp and do the usual make install clean. Afterwards, this is how your ssmtp.conf (located in
/usr/local/etc/ssmtp/) should look like:
root=catchall@example.net
mailhub=smtp.gmail.com:587
rewriteDomain=example.net
hostname=mail.example.net
FromLineOverride=YES
UseSTARTTLS=YES
AuthUser=your\_gmail\_account@gmail.com
AuthPass=swordfish
No, my password is not “swordfish”. The above settings work very well for my
gmail account, providing an easy and secure way to get status reports. To let
the script send you mails, just add a MAILTO=me@example.net statement to your
crontab, for example.