msmtp
*****

This manual was last updated August 1, 2007 for version 1.4.13 of msmtp.

Copyright (C) 2005, 2006, 2007 Martin Lambers

     Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.  A copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.

Introduction
************

msmtp is an SMTP client.

In its default mode of operation, it reads a mail from standard input and sends it to a predefined SMTP server that takes care of proper delivery. Command line options and exit codes are compatible to sendmail.

Supported SMTP features include:

  * Authentication methods PLAIN, LOGIN, CRAM-MD5 and EXTERNAL (and GSSAPI, DIGEST-MD5 and NTLM when compiled with GNU SASL support)

  * TLS encrypted connections with the OpenSSL or GnuTLS libraries (including server certificate verification and the possibility to send a client certificate)

  * Support for Internationalized Domain Names (IDN)

  * DSN (Delivery Status Notification) support

  * PIPELINING support for increased transmission speed

  * RMQS (Remote Message Queue Starting) support (ETRN keyword)

The best way to start is probably to have a look at the Examples section. See Examples.

In addition to sendmail mode, there are two other modes of operation:

  * Server information mode. In this mode, msmtp prints as much information as it can get about a given SMTP server (supported features, maximum mail size, ...).

  * Remote Message Queue Starting mode. In this mode, msmtp sends a Remote Message Queue Starting request for a host, domain, or queue to a given SMTP server.

Normally, a system wide configuration file and/or a user configuration file contain information about which SMTP server to use and how to use it, but almost all settings can also be configured on the command line.

The information about SMTP servers is organized in accounts. Each account describes one SMTP server: host name, authentication settings, TLS settings, and so on.  Each configuration file can define multiple accounts.

Configuration files
*******************

msmtp supports a system wide configuration file and a user configuration file. Both are optional and need not exist.

If it exists and is readable, a system wide configuration file SYSCONFDIR/msmtprc will be loaded, where SYSCONFDIR depends on your platform. The default is /usr/local/etc. Use --version to find out which directory your version uses.

If it exists and is readable, a user configuration file will be loaded (~/.msmtprc by default). Accounts defined in the user configuration file override accounts from the system configuration file.  The user configuration file must have no more permissions than user read/write. Configuration data from either file can be changed by command line options.

A configuration file is a simple text file. Empty lines and comment lines (whose first non-blank character is '#') are ignored. Every other line must contain a command and may contain an argument to that command. The argument may be enclosed in double quotes (").

If the first character of a filename is the tilde (~), this tilde will be replaced by $HOME.  If a command accepts the argument on, it also accepts an empty argument and treats that as if it was on.

Commands form groups. Each group starts with the account command and defines the settings for one SMTP server.

See Examples.

General commands
================

defaults
     Set defaults. The following configuration commands will set default values for all following account definitions in the current configuration file.

account NAME [: ACCOUNT[,...]]
     Start a new account definition with the given name. The current default values are filled in (see defaults).

     If a colon and a list of previously defined accounts is given after the account name, the new account, with the filled in default values, will inherit all settings from the accounts in the list.

host HOSTNAME
     The SMTP server to send the mail to. The argument may be a host name or a network address. Every account definition must contain this command.

port NUMBER
     The port that the SMTP server listens on. The default port will be acquired from your operating system's service database: for SMTP, the service is "smtp" (default port 25), unless TLS without STARTTLS is used, in which case it is "ssmtp" (465). For LMTP, it is "lmtp".

timeout (off|SECONDS)
     Set or unset a network timeout, in seconds. The argument off means that no timeout will be set, which means that the operating system default will be used.  For compatibility with older versions, connect_timeout is accepted as an alias for this command.

protocol (smtp|lmtp)
     Set the protocol to use. Currently only SMTP and LMTP are supported. SMTP is the default. See port for default ports.

domain ARGUMENT
     This command sets the argument of the SMTP EHLO (or LMTP LHLO) command. The default is localhost, which is stupid but should always work.  Possible choices are the domain part of your mail address (provider.example for joe@provider.example) or the fully qualified domain name of your host (if available).

Authentication commands
=======================

See Authentication.

auth [(on|off|METHOD)]
     This command enables or disables SMTP authentication and optionally chooses an authentication method to use. It should not be necessary to choose a method; with the argument on, msmtp will choose the best one available. Accepted methods are plain, cram-md5, digest-md5, gssapi, external, login, and ntlm. See Authentication.

user [USERNAME]
     Set your user name for SMTP authentication. An empty argument unsets the user name.  Authentication must be activated with the auth command.

password [SECRET]
     Set your password for SMTP authentication. An empty argument unsets the password.  Authentication must be activated with the auth command. If no password is set but one is needed during authentication, msmtp will try to find it in ~/.netrc, and if that fails, will prompt you for it. See Authentication.

ntlmdomain [NTLMDOMAIN]
     Set a domain for the ntlm authentication method. The default is to use no domain (equivalent to an empty argument), but some servers seem to require one, even if it is an arbitrary string.

TLS commands
============

See Transport Layer Security.

tls [(on|off)]
     This command enables or disables TLS/SSL encrypted connections to the SMTP server. Not every server supports TLS, and a few that support it require the tls_starttls off command.

     To use TLS/SSL, it is required to either use the tls_trust_file command (highly recommended) or to disable tls_certcheck. See Transport Layer Security.

tls_trust_file [FILE]
     This command activates strict server certificate verification. The given file must contain one or more certificates of trusted Certification Authorities (CAs) in PEM format.

     On Debian based systems, you can install the ca-certificates package and use the file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt.

     An empty argument disables this feature.

tls_key_file [FILE]
     This command (together with the tls_cert_file) command enables msmtp to send a client certificate to the SMTP server if requested. The file must contain the private key of a certificate in PEM format. An empty argument disables this feature. See Transport Layer Security.

tls_cert_file [FILE]
     This command (together with the tls_key_file command) enables msmtp to send a client certificate to the SMTP server if requested. The file must contain a certificate in PEM format. An empty argument disables this feature. See Transport Layer Security.

tls_certcheck [(on|off)]
     This command enables or disables checks for the server certificate.

     WARNING: When the checks are disabled, TLS/SSL sessions will be vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks! See Transport Layer Security.

     For compatibility with older versions, tls_nocertcheck is accepted as an alias for tls_certcheck off.

tls_starttls [(on|off)]
     This command enables or disables the use of the STARTTLS SMTP command to start TLS encryption. It is enabled by default. See Transport Layer Security. For compatibility with older versions, tls_nostarttls is accepted as an alias for tls_starttls off.

tls_force_sslv3 [(on|off)]
     Force TLS/SSL version SSLv3. This might be needed to use SSL with some old and broken servers. Do not use this unless you have to. See Transport Layer Security.

Commands specific to sendmail mode
==================================

See Sendmail mode.

auto_from [(on|off)]
     Enable or disable automatic envelope-from addresses. The default is off.

     When enabled, an envelope-from address of the form user@domain will be generated.  The local part will be set to $USER or, if that fails, to $LOGNAME or, if that fails, to the login name of the current user.  The domain part can be set with the maildomain command (see maildomain).  If the maildomain is empty, the envelope-from address will only consist of the user name and not have a domain part.

     When disabled, the envelope-from address must be set explicitly with the from command (see from).

     See Envelope-from address.

from [ADDRESS]
     Set the envelope-from address. This address will only be used when auto_from is disabled. See Envelope-from address.

maildomain [DOMAIN]
     Set a domain part for the generation of an envelope-from address. This is only used when auto_from is enabled. The domain may be empty. See Envelope-from address.

dsn_notify (off|CONDITION)
     This command sets the condition(s) under which the mail system should send DSN (Delivery Status Notification) messages. The argument off disables explicit DSN requests, which means the mail system decides when to send DSN messages. This is the default. The CONDITION must be never, to never request notification, or a comma separated list (no spaces!) of one or more of the following: failure, to request notification on transmission failure, delay, to be notified of message delays, success, to be notified of successful transmission. The SMTP server must support the DSN extension. See Delivery Status Notifications.

dsn_return (off|AMOUNT)
     This command controls how much of a mail should be returned in DSN (Delivery Status Notification) messages. The argument off disables explicit DSN requests, which means the mail system decides how much of a mail it returns in DSN messages. This is the default. The AMOUNT must be headers, to just return the message headers, or full, to return the full mail. The SMTP server must support the DSN extension. See Delivery Status Notifications.

keepbcc [(on|off)]
     This command controls whether to remove or keep the Bcc header when sending a mail. The default is to remove it. See Bcc header.

logfile [FILE]
     This command enables or disables logging to the specified file. An empty argument disables this feature. The file name - directs the log information to standard output. See Logging.

syslog [(on|off|FACILITY)]
     This command enables or disables syslog logging. The facility can be one of LOG_USER, LOG_MAIL, LOG_LOCAL0, ..., LOG_LOCAL7. The default facility is LOG_USER. Syslog logging is disabled by default. See Logging.

Invocation
**********

Synopsis
========

  * Sendmail mode (default):
     msmtp [OPTION...] [--] RECIPIENT...

     msmtp [OPTION...] -t [--] [RECIPIENT...]

  * Server information mode:
     msmtp [OPTION...] --serverinfo

  * Remote Message Queue Starting mode:
     msmtp [OPTION...] --rmqs=(HOST|@DOMAIN|#QUEUE)

Options
=======

Options override configuration file settings. They are compatible with sendmail where appropriate.

General options
---------------

--version
     Print version information. This includes information about the library used for TLS/SSL support (if any), the library used for authentication, the authentication mechanisms supported by this library, and the default locations of the system and user configuration files.

--help
     Print help.

-P
--pretend
     Print the configuration settings that would be used, but do not take further action.  An asterisk ('*') will be printed instead of the password.

-d
--debug
     Print lots of debugging information, including the whole conversation with the SMTP server. Be careful with this option: the (potentially dangerous) output will not be sanitized, and your password may get printed in an easily decodable format!

Changing the mode of operation
------------------------------

-S
--serverinfo
     Print information about the SMTP server and exit. This includes information about supported features (mail size limit, authentication, TLS, DSN, ...) and about the TLS certificate (if TLS is active). See Server information mode.
--rmqs=(HOST|@DOMAIN|#QUEUE)
     Send a Remote Message Queue Starting request for the given host, domain, or queue to the SMTP server and exit. See Remote Message Queue Starting mode.

Configuration options
---------------------

Most options in this category correspond to a configuration file command. Please refer to Configuration files for detailed information.

-C FILENAME
--file=FILENAME
     Use the given file instead of ~/.msmtprc as the user configuration file.

-a ACCOUNT
--account=ACCOUNT
     Use the given account instead of the account named default. This option cannot be used together with the --host option. See Choosing an account.
--host=HOSTNAME
     Use this SMTP server with settings from the command line; do not use any configuration file data. This option cannot be used together with the --account option. It disables loading of configuration files. See Choosing an account.
--port=NUMBER
     Set the port number to connect to. See port.
--timeout=(off|SECONDS)
     Set a network timeout. See timeout. For compatibility with older versions, --connect-timeout is accepted as an alias for this option.
--protocol=(smtp|lmtp)
     Set the protocol. See protocol.
--domain=[ARGUMENT]
     Set the argument of the SMTP EHLO (or LMTP LHLO) command. See domain.
--auth[=(on|off|METHOD)]
     Enable or disable authentication and optionally choose the method. See auth.
--user=[USERNAME]
     Set or unset the user name for authentication. See user.
--tls[=(on|off)]
     Enable or disable TLS/SSL. See tls.
--tls-starttls[=(on|off)]
     Enable or disable STARTTLS for TLS encryption. See tls_starttls.
--tls-trust-file=[FILE]
     Set or unset a trust file for TLS encryption. See tls_trust_file.
--tls-key-file=[FILE]
     Set or unset a key file for TLS encryption. See tls_key_file.
--tls-cert-file=[FILE]
     Set or unset a cert file for TLS encryption. See tls_cert_file.
--tls-certcheck[=(on|off)]
     Enable or disable server certificate checks for TLS encryption. See tls_certcheck.
--tls-force-sslv3[=(on|off)]
     Force TLS/SSL version SSLv3. See tls_force_sslv3.

Options specific to sendmail mode
---------------------------------

--auto-from[=(on|off)]
     Enable or disable automatic envelope-from addresses. The default is off. See auto_from.

-f ADDRESS
--from=ADDRESS
     Set the envelope-from address. It is only used when auto_from is off. See from.

     If no account was chosen yet (with --account or --host), this option will choose the first account that has the given envelope-from address (set with the from command). If no such account is found, "default" is used. See Choosing an account.
--maildomain=[DOMAIN]
     Set the domain part for generated envelope-from addresses. It is only used when auto_from is on. See maildomain.

-N (off|CONDITION)
--dsn-notify=(off|CONDITION)
     Set or unset DSN notification conditions. See dsn_notify.

-R (off|AMOUNT)
--dsn-return=(off|AMOUNT)
     Set or unset the DSN notification amount. See dsn_return. Note that hdrs is accepted as an alias for headers to be compatible with sendmail.
--keepbcc[=(on|off)]
     Enable or disable the preservation of the Bcc header. See keepbcc.

-X [FILE]
--logfile=[FILE]
     Set or unset the log file. See logfile.
--syslog[=(on|off|FACILITY)]
     Enable or disable syslog logging. See syslog.

-t
--read-recipients
     Send the mail to the recipients given in the To, Cc, and Bcc headers of the mail in addition to the recipients given on the command line.

--
     This marks the end of options. All following arguments will be treated as recipient addresses, even if they start with a '-'.

The following options are accepted but ignored for sendmail compatibility: -BTYPE, -bm, -FNAME, -G, -hN, -i, -L TAG, -m, -n, -O option=VALUE, -ox VALUE, -v

Choosing an account
===================

There are three ways to choose the account to use. It depends on the circumstances which method is the best.

 1. --account=ACCOUNT
     Use the given account. Command line settings override configuration file settings.

 2. --host=HOSTNAME
     Use only the settings from the command line; do not use any configuration file data.

 3. --from=ADDRESS
     Choose the first account from the system or user configuration file that has a matching envelope-from address as specified by a from command. This works only when neither --account nor --host is used.

If none of the above options is used (or if --from is used but no account has a matching from command), then the account "default" is used.

Exit code
=========

The standard exit codes from sysexits.h are used.

Environment / Files
===================

SYSCONFDIR/msmtprc
     The system configuration file. Use the --version option to find out what SYSCONFDIR is on your platform.

~/.msmtprc
     The default user configuration file.

~/.netrc
     The .netrc file contains login information. If a password is not found in the configuration file, msmtp will search it in .netrc before prompting the user for it. The syntax of .netrc is described in the netrc(5) or ftp(1) manual page.

$USER, $LOGNAME
     These variables override the user's login name when constructing an envelope-from address. LOGNAME is only used if USER is unset.

$TMPDIR
     Directory to create temporary files in. If this is unset, a system specific default directory is used.

     A temporary file is only created when the -t/--read-recipients option is used. The file is then used to buffer the headers of the mail (but not the body, so the file won't get very large).

SMTP features
*************

Transport Layer Security
========================

Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a new name for Secure Socket Layer (SSL). The TLS 1.0 protocol is an updated version of the SSL 3.0 protocol. TLS and SSL mean the same thing.

Quoting from RFC2246, the TLS 1.0 protocol specification:

"The TLS protocol provides communications privacy over the Internet. The protocol allows client/server applications to communicate in a way that is designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering, or message forgery."

SMTP servers can use TLS in one of two modes:

  * Immediately. This is SMTP tunneled through TLS, aka SSMTP. The default port for this mode is 465 (ssmtp).

  * Via the STARTTLS SMTP command.  The SMTP session begins normally. The client sends the STARTTLS command when it wishes to begin TLS encryption. The default port for this mode is the default SMTP port: 25 (smtp).

msmtp can switch between these modes with the tls_starttls command (see tls_starttls) command or the --tls-starttls option (see --tls-starttls).

When TLS is started, the server sends a certificate to identify itself. This certificate contains information about the certificate owner, the certificate issuer, and the activation and expiration times of the certificate.  This information can be displayed in server information mode. See Server information mode.

To use TLS, it is required to either enable full server certificate verification using the tls_trust_file command or --tls-trust-file option, or to disable all certificate checks using tls_certcheck off or --tls-certcheck=off. WARNING: When certificate checks are disabled, TLS/SSL sessions are vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks! See tls_trust_file, --tls-trust-file, tls_certcheck, --tls-certcheck.

If your system has a file that collects all system-wide trusted CA certificates, it is easiest to just use this in the defaults section of your configuration file. On Debian-based systems, for example, the adequate command would be tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt.

But you can also find out manually which CA certificate you need to trust. The following example works as of 2007-04-18.

For the Gmail SMTP server, you first issue the following command:

     $ msmtp --serverinfo --host=smtp.gmail.com --tls=on --port=587 \
       --tls-certcheck=off

The option --port=587 is specific to Gmail and should not be used with other servers. The option --tls-certcheck=off allows msmtp to accept any certificate, so that it can print some information about it.

According to the output of this command, the common name of the server certificate issuer is "Thawte Premium Server CA". This means that you have to trust the Thawte CA to use full TLS security. You can download the Thawte CA certificate bundle from http://thawte.com/roots. You get a ZIP file with different certificates. The one you need for the tls_trust_file command is Thawte Server Roots/ThawtePremiumServerCA_b64.txt.

The following command should now succeed:

     $ msmtp --serverinfo --host=smtp.gmail.com --tls=on --port=587 \
       --tls-trust-file="Thawte Server Roots/ThawtePremiumServerCA_b64.txt"

If the server requests it, the client can send a certificate, too. This allows the server to verify the identity of the client. See the EXTERNAL mechanism in Authentication. The tls_key_file/tls_cert_file commands or the --tls-key-file/--tls-cert-file options can be used to set a client certificate. See tls_key_file/--tls-key-file, tls_cert_file/--tls-cert-file. Note that GnuTLS will only send a client certificate if it matches one of the CAs advertised by the server. If you set a client certificate but it is not send to the server, it probably was not issued by any CA that the server trusts.

Authentication
==============

Many SMTP servers require a client to authenticate itself before it is allowed to send mail.

Multiple authentication methods exist. Most SMTP servers support only some of them.  Some methods send authentication data in plain text (or nearly plain text) to the server. These methods should only be used when TLS is active to prevent others from stealing the password. See Transport Layer Security.

By default, msmtp chooses a method automatically, and it will never choose one that puts the authentication data at risk. See below for details.

msmtp supports the following authentication methods:

  * PLAIN
     This authentication method needs a user name and a password. Both are send in BASE64 encoding, which can be easily decoded to plain text.

  * CRAM-MD5
     This authentication method needs a user name and a password. The authentication data is not sent in plain text, which means this method can safely be used without TLS.

  * DIGEST-MD5
     This authentication method needs a user name and a password. The authentication data is not sent in plain text, which means this method can safely be used without TLS.

  * GSSAPI
     This authentication method needs a user name. The Kerberos framework takes care of secure authentication, therefore this method can safely be used without TLS.

  * EXTERNAL
     This is a special authentication method: The actual authentication happens outside of the SMTP protocol, typically by sending a TLS client certificate (see Transport Layer Security).

     The EXTERNAL method merely confirms that this authentication succeeded for the given user (or, if no user name is given, confirms that authentication succeeded). Thus it may not be necessary for authentication to use this method, and if the server does not support the EXTERNAL method, this does not mean that it does not support authentication with TLS client certificates.

     This authentication method is not chosen automatically; you have to request it manually.

     Note: Sendmail 8.12.11 advertises the EXTERNAL mechanism only after a TLS client certificate has been send. It seems to ignore the optional user name. Does anyone know more about this?

  * LOGIN
     This is a non-standard authentication method similar to (but worse than) PLAIN. It needs a user name and a password, both of which are send in BASE64 encoding, which can be easily decoded to plain text.

  * NTLM
     This is an obscure non-standard authentication method. It needs a user name and a password and in some cases a special domain parameter (see ntlmdomain). The authentication data is not send in plain text, but since NTLM is not an open standard, it should be considered broken and insecure.

It depends on the underlying authentication library and its version whether a particular method is supported or not. Use the --version to find out which methods are supported by your version of msmtp.

Authentication data can be set with the user and password commands or with the --user option. See user, password, --user. If no password is set but one is needed during authentication, msmtp will try to find it in ~/.netrc, and if that fails, msmtp will prompt you for it.

The authentication method can be chosen with the auth command or --auth option, but it is usually sufficient to just use the on argument to let msmtp choose the method itself. See auth, --auth.

If msmtp chooses the method itself, it will never choose an insecure method. If TLS is active, all methods are considered secure in this context, because the connection to the server is protected by TLS. If TLS is not active, only the CRAM-MD5, DIGEST-MD5, and GSSAPI methods are considered secure in this context, because all the others methods put the authentication data at risk.

If you really want to risk your authentication data, you have to force msmtp to do that by manually setting the authentication method while TLS is off.

Delivery Status Notifications
=============================

In situations such as delivery failure or very long delivery delay, the mail system often generates a message for the sender of the mail in question, informing him about the difficulties.

Delivery Status Notification (DSN) requests, defined in RFC 3461, try to give the sender of the mail control about how and when these DSN messages are sent. The SMTP server must support the DSN extension. See Server information mode.

A first parameter controls when such messages should be generated: never, on delivery failure, on delivery delay, and/or on success. This can be set with dsn_notify/--dsn-notify, see dsn_notify/--dsn-notify.

A second parameter controls how much of the original mail should be contained in a DSN message: only the headers, or the full mail. This can be set with dsn_return/--dsn-return, see dsn_return/--dsn-return. Note that this parameter only applies to DSNs that indicate delivery failure for at least one recipient. If a DSN contains no indications of delivery failure, only the headers of the message are returned.

Sendmail mode
*************

Envelope-from address
=====================

The SMTP server expects a sender mail address for each mail. This is the envelope-from address. It is independent of the From header (because it is part of the mail envelope, not of the mail itself), but in most cases both addresses are the same.

Envelope-from addresses can be generated automatically (when auto_from is enabled with the auto_from command or --auto-from option) or set explicitly with the from command and --from option. See auto_from, from.

When auto_from is enabled, an envelope-from address of the form user@domain will be generated.  The local part will be set to $USER or, if that fails, to $LOGNAME or, if that fails, to the login name of the current user.  The domain part can be set with the maildomain command and --maildomain option (see maildomain).  If the maildomain is empty, the envelope-from address will only consist of the user name and not have a domain part.

Logging
=======

Logging is enabled on a per account basis. If it is enabled, msmtp will generate one log line for each mail it tries to send via the account in question.

The line will include the following information:

  * Host name of the SMTP server:  host=hostname

  * Whether TLS was used: tls=(on|off)

  * Whether authentication was used: auth=(on|off)

  * The user name used for authentication (only if authentication is used): user=name

  * The envelope-from address: from=address

  * The recipient addresses: recipients=addr1,addr2,...

  * The size of the mail as transferred to the server, in bytes (only if the delivery succeeded): mailsize=number

  * The SMTP status code and SMTP error message (only in case of failure and only if available): smtpstatus=number, smtpmsg='message'. Multiline SMTP messages will be concatenated into one line.

  * The msmtp error message (only in case of failure and only if available): errormsg='message'

  * The msmtp exit code (from sysexits.h; EX_OK indicates success): exitcode=EX_...

If a logfile is given with the logfile command or --logfile option, this log line will be prepended with the current date and time and appended to the specified file. See logfile, --logfile.

If syslog logging is enabled with the syslog command or --syslog option, the log line is passed to the syslog service with the specified facility. See syslog, --syslog.

Bcc header
==========

msmtp transmits mails unaltered to the SMTP server, with one exception: the Bcc header(s) will be removed before the transmission. This behavior can be changed with the keepbcc command and --keepbcc option, see keepbcc/--keepbcc.

Server information mode
***********************

In server information mode, msmtp prints as much information about the SMTP server as it can get and then exits.

The SMTP features that can be detected are:

  * SIZE
     The maximum message size that the SMTP server accepts.

  * PIPELINING
     Whether certain SMTP commands may be send in groups rather than one by one. This can speed up mail transmission if the recipient list is long. This feature is used automatically.

  * STARTTLS
     See Transport Layer Security.

  * AUTH
     See Authentication.

  * DSN
     See Delivery Status Notifications.

  * ETRN
     See Remote Message Queue Starting mode.

If TLS is activated for server information mode, the following information will be printed about the SMTP server's TLS certificate (if available):

  * Owner information

       * Common Name

       * Organization

       * Organizational unit

       * Locality

       * State or Province

       * Country

  * Issuer information

       * Common Name

       * Organization

       * Organizational unit

       * Locality

       * State or Province

       * Country

  * General

       * Activation time

       * Expiration time

       * SHA1 fingerprint

       * MD5 fingerprint

Remote Message Queue Starting mode
**********************************

Remote Message Queue Starting (RMQS) is defined in RFC 1985.  It is a way for a client to request that a server start the processing of its mail queues for messages that are waiting at the server for the client machine.  If any messages are at the server for the client, then the server creates a new SMTP session and sends the messages at that time.

msmtp can only send the request (using the ETRN SMTP command); a mail server on the client side should then accept the connection of the remote SMTP server to receive the mail.

RMQS requests can be sent with the --rmqs option (see --rmqs). Destinations defined in RFC 1985 are:

  * HOST
     Request the messages for the given host.

  * @DOMAIN
     Request the messages for the given domain.

  * #QUEUE
     Request the delivery of the messages in the given queue.

Examples
********

A system wide configuration file
================================

     # A system wide configuration is optional.
     # If it exists, it usually defines a default account.
     # This allows msmtp to be used like /usr/sbin/sendmail.
     account default

     # The SMTP smarthost.
     host mailhub.oursite.example

     # Construct envelope-from addresses of the form "user@oursite.example".
     #auto_from on
     #maildomain oursite.example

     # Use TLS.
     #tls on
     #tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

     # Syslog logging with facility LOG_MAIL instead of the default LOG_USER.
     syslog LOG_MAIL

A user configuration file
=========================

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

     # A freemail service
     account freemail
     host smtp.freemail.example
     from joe_smith@freemail.example
     auth on
     user joe.smith
     password secret

     # A second mail address at the same freemail service
     account freemail2 : freemail
     from joey@freemail.example

     # The SMTP server of the provider.
     account provider
     host mail.provider.example
     from smithjoe@provider.example
     auth on
     user 123
     password pwd

     # Set a default account
     account default : provider

Using msmtp with Mutt
=====================

Create a configuration file for msmtp and add the following lines to your Mutt configuration file:

     set sendmail="/path/to/msmtp"
     set use_from=yes
     set realname="Your Name"
     set from=you@example.com
     set envelope_from=yes

The envelope_from=yes option lets Mutt use the -f option of msmtp.  Therefore msmtp chooses the first account that matches the from address you@example.com. Alternatively, you can use the -a option:

     set sendmail="/path/to/msmtp -a my_account"

Or set everything from the command line:

     set sendmail="/path/to/msmtp --host=mailhub -f me@example.com --tls"

See Choosing an account.

If you have multiple mail accounts in your msmtp configuration file and let Mutt use the -f option to choose one, you can easily switch accounts in Mutt with the following Mutt configuration lines:

     macro generic "<esc>1" ":set from=you@example.com"
     macro generic "<esc>2" ":set from=you@your-employer.example"
     macro generic "<esc>3" ":set from=you@some-other-provider.example"

Now you can use <esc>1, <esc>2, and <esc>3 to switch accounts.

The following example uses a different approach: it maps the single key <tab> in Compose context for switching between the various account in a handy visual way. In the same Compose context, = is mapped in order to show the current msmtp account. This example was contributed by Thomas Baruchel.

     # Define <tab> and = in order to switch or see the current msmtp account
     # Don't forget to put the right path for msmtp binary
     macro compose \Cx_ ":set sendmail"
     macro compose \Cx| "\Cx_ = \"/usr/local/bin/msmtp"
     macro compose \Cx& ":macro compose \\t \\Cx"
     macro compose <tab> "\Cx0"
     macro compose = "\Cx_\n"
     # Put the account in the following lines (here three accounts)
     # Don't forget to put the number of the account at the beginning
     # of the line, and the number of the next account after the '&'
     macro compose \Cx0 "\Cx|\"\n\Cx&1\n\Cx_\n" # default and switch to 1
     macro compose \Cx1 "\Cx| -a example_account\"\n\Cx&2\n\Cx_\n" # switch to 2
     macro compose \Cx2 "\Cx| -a gmail\"\n\Cx&0\n\Cx_\n" # switch to 0
     # End of the accounts

Using msmtp with mail
=====================

Define a default account, and put the following into ~/.mailrc:

     set sendmail="/path/to/msmtp"

You need to define a default account, because mail does not allow extra options to the msmtp command line.

Development
***********

The homepage of msmtp is http://msmtp.sourceforge.net/; the SourceForge project page is http://sourceforge.net/projects/msmtp/.

The mailing list msmtp-users can be accessed from the project page.

Please send any questions, suggestions, and bug reports either to the mailing list or to Martin Lambers (marlam@marlam.de, OpenPGP key: http://www.marlam.de/key.txt). If you send a bug report, please include the output of msmtp --version.

Copying Information
*******************

GNU Free Documentation License
==============================

     [file fdl.texi not included]

GNU GPL
=======

     [file gpl.texi not included]