MSMTP Mail Client Docs

This document will outline the steps taken to setup msmtp on a Raspberry Pi Zero W for use with services such as Unattended Upgrades and Logwatch.

Disclaimer

This README provide a general outline of the process for setting up these functions, however it has been a considerable amount of time since this document has been tested or reviewed. Please use this as a guide only, and seek further clarification via web search and forums (e.g. Stack Overflow) if necessary.

Mail Setup

Install required packages:

sudo apt-get install msmtp msmtp-mta bsd-mailx apt-config-auto-update

Create an msmtp config file with the following settings:

sudo nano /etc/msmtprc

# Set default values for all following accounts.
defaults
auth           on
tls            on
tls_starttls   on
tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
logfile        /var/log/msmtp

# Gmail
account        gmail
host           smtp.gmail.com
port           587
auth           login
from           user@gmail.com
user           user@gmail.com
password       pass

# Set a default account
account default : gmail

Test whether the root user can send an email using the mailx command:

echo "This is the email body" > /tmp/body.txt && sudo mailx -s "This is the subject" <YOUR_EMAIL>@gmail.com < /tmp/body.txt; rm /tmp/body.txt

Note: You may have to enable insecure apps on Google for this to work

Unattended Upgrades

Edit unattended-upgrade settings to send emails following updates:

sudo nano /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

The following four lines should be the only uncommented lines in the Origins-Pattern section (you may have to add the last 2 lines):

"origin=Debian,codename=${distro_codename},label=Debian";
"origin=Debian,codename=${distro_codename},label=Debian-Security";
"origin=Raspbian,codename=${distro_codename},label=Raspbian";
"origin=Raspberry Pi Foundation,codename=${distro_codename},label=Raspberry Pi Foundation";

Edit the mail settings as follows:

Unattended-Upgrade::Mail "<YOUR_EMAIL>@gmail.com";
Unattended-Upgrade::MailOnlyOnError "false";
Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Kernel-Packages "true";
Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-New-Unused-Dependencies "true";
Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Dependencies "true";
Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot "true";
Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot-WithUsers "true";
Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot-Time "05:00";

Note: The package apt-config-auto-update must be installed for automatic reboots to take place.

When testing unattended-upgrades with email output, use the following command:

sudo unattended-upgrade -d

Logwatch

Ensure that the logwatch.conf file has been copied from the install directory /usr/share/logwatch/default.conf to /etc/logwatch/conf:

sudo cp /usr/share/logwatch/default.conf/logwatch.conf /etc/logwatch/conf/

Edit the settings in the logwatch.conf file as follows:

sudo nano /etc/logwatch/conf/logwatch.conf

Format = html
MailTo = <YOUR_EMAIL>@gmail.com
Detail = Med
mailer = "/usr/bin/msmtp -t"

Note: The most important line is the mailer line. No emails will be sent out if the line is not modified.

Run the following command to create a temp directory for logwatch:

sudo mkdir /var/cache/logwatch

When testing logwatch with email output, use the following command:

sudo logwatch --range today

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