Setting Ubuntu to send email

After setting up RAID on an Ubuntu server at home, I wanted the server to email me if there were any problems with the drives.

Rather than installing and configuring postfix or some other MTA, I settled for ssmtp.

Installation and testing is as simple as:

$ sudo apt-get install mailutils ssmtp
$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure ssmtp
$ echo "This is a test" | mail -s test your-address@gmail.com

Check your spam folder for the messages though!

Configuration lives in /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf.

References

• ‘Ask Ubuntu’ forum post
• ssmtp config documentation