MSMTP(1) General Commands Manual MSMTP(1)
NAME
msmtp - An SMTP client
SYNOPSIS
Sendmail mode (default):
msmtp [option...] [--] recipient...
msmtp [option...] -t [--] [recipient...]
Configuration mode:
msmtp --configure <mailaddress>
Server information mode:
msmtp [option...] --serverinfo
Remote Message Queue Starting mode:
msmtp [option...] --rmqs=host|@domain|#queue
DESCRIPTION
In the default sendmail mode, msmtp reads a mail from standard input
and sends it to an SMTP server for delivery.
In server information mode, msmtp prints information about an SMTP
server.
In Remote Message Queue Starting mode, msmtp sends a Remote Message
Queue Starting request for a host, domain, or queue to an SMTP server.
EXIT STATUS
The standard sendmail exit status codes are used, as defined in sysex-
its.h.
OPTIONS
Options override configuration file settings.
They are compatible with sendmail where appropriate.
General options
--version
Print version information, including information about
the libraries used.
--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 your password.
-v, -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
--configure=mailaddress
Generate a configuration for the given mail address and
print it. This can be modified or copied unchanged to the
configuration file. Note that this only works for mail
domains that publish appropriate SRV records; see RFC
8314.
-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).
--rmqs=(host|@domain|#queue)
Send a Remote Message Queue Starting request for the
given host, domain, or queue to the SMTP server and exit.
Configuration options
-C, --file=filename
Use the given file instead of ~/.msmtprc or $XDG_CON-
FIG_HOME/msmtp/config as the user configuration file.
-a, --account=account_name
Use the given account instead of the account named "de-
fault". The settings of this account may be changed with
command line options. This option cannot be used together
with the --host option.
--host=hostname
Use this SMTP server with settings from the command line;
do not use any configuration file data. This option can-
not be used together with the --account option.
--port=number
Set the port number to connect to. See the port command.
--source-ip=[IP]
Set or unset an IP address to bind the socket to. See the
source_ip command.
--proxy-host=[IP|hostname]
Set or unset a SOCKS proxy to use. See the proxy_host
command.
--proxy-port=[number]
Set or unset a port number for the proxy host. See the
proxy_port command.
--socket=[socketname]
Set or unset a local unix domain socket name to connect
to. See the socket command.
--timeout=(off|seconds)
Set or unset a network timeout, in seconds. See the time-
out command.
--protocol=(smtp|lmtp)
Set the protocol. See the protocol command.
--domain=[string]
Set the argument of the SMTP EHLO (or LMTP LHLO) command.
See the domain command.
--auth[=(on|off|method)]
Enable or disable authentication and optionally choose
the method. See the auth command.
--user=[username]
Set or unset the user name for authentication. See the
user command.
--passwordeval=[cmd]
Evaluate password for authentication. See the passworde-
val command.
--tls[=(on|off)]
Enable or disable TLS/SSL. See the tls command.
--tls-starttls[=(on|off)]
Enable or disable STARTTLS for TLS. See the tls_starttls
command.
--tls-trust-file=[file]
Set or unset a trust file for TLS. See the tls_trust_file
command.
--tls-crl-file=[file]
Deprecated. Set or unset a certificate revocation list
(CRL) file for TLS. See the tls_crl_file command.
--tls-fingerprint=[fingerprint]
Set or unset the fingerprint of a trusted TLS certifi-
cate. See the tls_fingerprint command.
--tls-key-file=[file]
Set or unset a key file for TLS. See the tls_key_file
command.
--tls-cert-file=[file]
Set or unset a cert file for TLS. See the tls_cert_file
command.
--tls-certcheck[=(on|off)]
Enable or disable server certificate checks for TLS. See
the tls_certcheck command.
--tls-priorities=[priorities]
Set or unset TLS priorities. See the tls_priorities com-
mand.
--tls-host-override=[host]
Set or unset override for TLS host verification. See the
tls_host_override command.
--tls-min-dh-prime-bits=[bits]
Deprecated, use --tls-priorities instead. Set or unset
minimum bit size of the Diffie-Hellman (DH) prime. See
the tls_min_dh_prime_bits command.
Options specific to sendmail mode
-f, --from=address
Set the envelope-from address.
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 the from and allow_from_override commands.
-N, --dsn-notify=(off|cond)
Set or unset DSN notification conditions. See the dsn_no-
tify command.
-R, --dsn-return=(off|ret)
Set or unset the DSN notification amount. See the dsn_re-
turn command. Note that hdrs is accepted as an alias for
headers to be compatible with sendmail.
--set-from-header[=(auto|on|off)]
Set From header handling. See the set_from_header com-
mand.
--set-date-header[=(auto|off)]
Set Date header handling. See the set_date_header com-
mand.
--set-msgid-header[=(auto|off)]
Set Message-ID header handling. See the set_msgid_header
command.
--remove-bcc-headers[=(on|off)]
Enable or disable the removal of Bcc headers. See the re-
move_bcc_headers command.
--undisclosed-recipients[=(on|off)]
Enable or disable the replacement of To/Cc/Bcc with "To:
undisclosed-recipients:;". See the undisclosed_recipi-
ents command.
-X, --logfile=[file]
Set or unset the log file. See the logfile command.
--logfile-time-format=[fmt]
Set or unset the log file time format. See the log-
file_time_format command.
--syslog[=(on|off|facility)]
Enable or disable syslog logging. See the syslog command.
-t, --read-recipients
Read recipient addresses from the To, Cc, and Bcc headers
of the mail in addition to the recipients given on the
command line. If any Resent- headers are present, then
the addresses from any Resent-To, Resent-Cc, and Resent-
Bcc headers in the first block of Resent- headers are
used instead.
--read-envelope-from
Read the envelope from address from the From header of
the mail.
--aliases=[file]
Set or unset an aliases file. See the aliases command.
-Fname Msmtp adds a From header to mails that lack it, using the
envelope from address. This option allows one to set a
full name to be used in that header.
--auto-from[=(on|off)]
Obsolete. See the auto_from command.
--maildomain=[domain]
Obsolete. See the maildomain command.
-- 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 compatibil-
ity:
-Btype, -bm, -G, -hN, -i, -L tag, -m, -n, -O option=value, -ox value
USAGE
A suggestion for a suitable configuration file can be generated using
the --configure option. 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 all settings can also be config-
ured on the command line.
The information about SMTP servers is organized in accounts. Each ac-
count describes one SMTP server: host name, authentication settings,
TLS settings, and so on. Each configuration file can define multiple
accounts.
The user can choose which account to use in one of three ways:
--account=id
Use the given account. Command line settings override configura-
tion file settings.
--host=hostname
Use only the settings from the command line; do not use any con-
figuration file data.
--from=address or --read-envelope-from
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.
Subadresses are supported. For example, the envelope from ad-
dress user+detail@example.com will match the account for
user@example.com.
Furthermore, the envelope-from address of the account may be a
wildcard pattern. See the from command.
If none of the above options is used (or if no account has a matching
from command), then the account "default" is used.
Msmtp transmits mails unaltered to the SMTP server, with the following
exceptions:
- The Bcc header(s) will be removed. This behavior can be changed with
the remove_bcc_headers command and --remove-bcc-headers option.
- A From header will be added if the mail does not have one. This can
be changed with the set_from_header command and --set-from-header op-
tion. The header will use the envelope from address and optionally a
full name set with the -F option.
- A Date header will be added if the mail does not have one. This can
be changed with the set_date_header command and --set-date-header op-
tion.
- A Message-ID header will be added if the mail does not have one. This
can be changed with the set_msg_header command and --set-msgid-header
option.
- When undisclosed_recipients is set, the original To, Cc, and Bcc
headers are removed and replaced with "To: undisclosed-recipients:;".
Skip to the EXAMPLES section for a quick start.
CONFIGURATION FILES
If it exists and is readable, a system wide configuration file
SYSCONFDIR/msmtprc will be loaded, where SYSCONFDIR depends on your
platform. Use --version to find out which directory is used.
If it exists and is readable, a user configuration file will be loaded
(~/.msmtprc will be tried first followed by $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/msmtp/con-
fig by default, but see --version). Accounts defined in the user con-
figuration file override accounts from the system configuration file.
Configuration data from either file can be changed by command line op-
tions.
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 ("), for example if its
first or last character is a blank.
If a file name starts with 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 are organized in accounts. Each account starts with the ac-
count command and defines the settings for one SMTP account.
Skip to the EXAMPLES section for a quick start.
Commands are as follows:
defaults
Set defaults. The following configuration commands will set de-
fault values for all following account definitions in the cur-
rent configuration file.
account name [:account[,...]]
Start a new account definition with the given name. The current
default values are filled in.
If a colon and a list of previously defined accounts is given
after the account name, the new account, with the filled in de-
fault values, will inherit all settings from the accounts in the
list.
eval cmd
Replace the current configuration file line with the first line
of the output (stdout) of the command cmd. This can be used to
decrypt settings or to create them via scripts. For example,
eval echo host localhost replaces the current line with host lo-
calhost.
Note that every eval line will be evaluated when the configura-
tion file is read.
The cmd command must not mess with standard input; if in doubt,
append < /dev/null.
Note that for passwords you can also use the passwordeval com-
mand instead of eval password cmd. This has the advantage that
the command is only evaluated if needed.
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 con-
tain this command.
port number
The port that the SMTP server listens on. The default is 25
("smtp"), unless TLS without STARTTLS is used, in which case it
is 465 ("smtps").
source_ip [IP]
Set a source IP address to bind the outgoing connection to. Use-
ful only in special cases on multi-home systems. An empty argu-
ment disables this.
proxy_host [IP|hostname]
Use a SOCKS proxy. All network traffic will go through this
proxy host, including DNS queries, except for a DNS query that
might be necessary to resolve the proxy host name itself (this
can be avoided by using an IP address as proxy host name). An
empty hostname argument disables proxy usage. The supported
SOCKS protocol version is 5. If you want to use this with Tor,
see also "Using msmtp with Tor" below.
proxy_port [number]
Set the port number for the proxy host. An empty number argument
resets this to the default port.
socket socketname
Set the file name of a unix domain socket to connect to. This
overrides both host/port and proxy_host/proxy_port.
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 operat-
ing system default will be used.
protocol (smtp|lmtp)
Set the protocol to use. Currently only SMTP and LMTP are sup-
ported. SMTP is the default. See the port command above for de-
fault ports.
domain argument
Use this command to set the argument of the SMTP EHLO (or LMTP
LHLO) command. The default is localhost, which is stupid but
usually works. Try to change the default if mails get rejected
due to anti-SPAM measures. 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).
The following substitution patterns are supported:
%H will be replaced by $HOSTNAME, or if that fails by the host
name of the system.
%C will be replaced by the canonical name of %H.
%M will be replaced by the contents of /etc/mailname (poten-
tially a different directory is used depending on the build con-
figuration; see the output of msmtp --version and look for the
location of the system configuration file).
auth [(on|off|method)]
Enable or disable authentication and optionally choose a method
to use. The argument on chooses a method automatically.
Usually a user name and a password are used for authentication.
The user name is specified in the configuration file with the
user command. There are five different methods to specify the
password:
1. Add the password to the system key ring. Currently supported
key rings are the Gnome key ring and the Mac OS X Keychain. For
the Gnome key ring, use the command secret-tool (part of Gnome's
libsecret) to store passwords: secret-tool store --label=msmtp
host mail.freemail.example service smtp user joe.smith. On Mac
OS X, use the following command: security add-internet-password
-s mail.freemail.example -r smtp -a joe.smith -w. In both exam-
ples, replace mail.freemail.example with the SMTP server name,
and joe.smith with your user name.
2. Store the password in an encrypted files, and use passworde-
val to specify a command to decrypt that file, e.g. using GnuPG.
See EXAMPLES.
3. Store the password in the configuration file using the pass-
word command. (Usually it is not considered a good idea to
store passwords in cleartext files. If you do it anyway, you
must make sure that the file can only be read by yourself.)
4. Store the password in ~/.netrc. This method is probably obso-
lete.
5. Type the password into the terminal when it is required.
It is recommended to use method 1 or 2.
Multiple authentication methods exist. Most servers support only
some of them. Historically, sophisticated methods were devel-
oped to protect passwords from being sent unencrypted to the
server, but nowadays everybody needs TLS anyway, so the simple
methods suffice since the whole session is protected. A suitable
authentication method is chosen automatically, and when TLS is
disabled for some reason, only methods that avoid sending clear-
text passwords are considered.
The following user / password methods are supported: plain (a
simple cleartext method, with base64 encoding, supported by al-
most all servers), scram-sha-1 (a method that avoids cleartext
passwords), scram-sha-256 (same but with stronger hash),
cram-md5 (an obsolete method that avoids cleartext passwords,
but is not considered secure anymore), digest-md5 (an overcom-
plicated obsolete method that avoids cleartext passwords, but is
not considered secure anymore), login (a non-standard cleartext
method similar to but worse than the plain method), ntlm (an ob-
scure non-standard method that is now considered broken; it
sometimes requires a special domain parameter passed via ntlmdo-
main).
There are currently three authentication methods that are not
based on user / password information and have to be chosen manu-
ally: oauthbearer or its predecessor xoauth2 (an OAuth2 token
from the mail provider is used as the password. See the docu-
mentation of your mail provider for details on how to get this
token. The passwordeval command can be used to pass the regu-
larly changing tokens into msmtp from a script or an environment
variable), external (the authentication happens outside of the
protocol, typically by sending a TLS client certificate, and the
method merely confirms that this authentication succeeded), and
gssapi (the Kerberos framework takes care of secure authentica-
tion, only a user name is required).
It depends on the underlying authentication library and its ver-
sion whether a particular method is supported or not. Use --ver-
sion to find out which methods are supported.
user login
Set the user name for authentication. An empty argument unsets
the user name.
password secret
Set the password for authentication. An empty argument unsets
the password. Consider using the passwordeval command or a key
ring instead of this command, to avoid storing cleartext pass-
words in the configuration file.
passwordeval [cmd]
Set the password for authentication to the output (stdout) of
the command cmd. This can be used e.g. to decrypt password
files on the fly or to query key rings, and thus to avoid stor-
ing cleartext passwords.
The cmd command must not mess with standard input; if in doubt,
append < /dev/null.
ntlmdomain [domain]
Set a domain for the ntlm authentication method. This is obso-
lete.
tls [(on|off)]
Enable or disable TLS (also known as SSL) for secured connec-
tions.
Transport Layer Security (TLS) "... provides communications pri-
vacy over the Internet. The protocol allows client/server ap-
plications to communicate in a way that is designed to prevent
eavesdropping, tampering, or message forgery" (quote from
RFC2246).
A server can use TLS in one of two modes: via a STARTTLS command
(the session starts with the normal protocol initialization, and
TLS is then started using the protocol's STARTTLS command), or
immediately (TLS is initialized before the normal protocol ini-
tialization; this requires a separate port). The first mode is
the default, but you can switch to the second mode by disabling
tls_starttls.
When TLS is started, the server sends a certificate to identify
itself. To verify the server identity, a client program is ex-
pected to check that the certificate is formally correct and
that it was issued by a Certificate Authority (CA) that the user
trusts. (There can also be certificate chains with intermediate
CAs.)
The list of trusted CAs is specified using the tls_trust_file
command. The default value ist "system" and chooses the system-
wide default, but you can also choose the trusted CAs yourself.
A fundamental problem with this is that you need to trust CAs.
Like any other organization, a CA can be incompetent, malicious,
subverted by bad people, or forced by government agencies to
compromise end users without telling them. All of these things
happened and continue to happen worldwide. The idea to have
central organizations that have to be trusted for your communi-
cation to be secure is fundamentally broken.
Instead of putting trust in a CA, you can choose to trust only a
single certificate for the server you want to connect to. For
that purpose, specify the certificate fingerprint with tls_fin-
gerprint. This makes sure that no man-in-the-middle can fake the
identity of the server by presenting you a fraudulent certifi-
cate issued by some CA that happens to be in your trust list.
However, you have to update the fingerprint whenever the server
certificate changes, and you have to make sure that the change
is legitimate each time, e.g. when the old certificate expired.
This is inconvenient, but it's the price to pay.
Information about a server certificate can be obtained with
--serverinfo --tls --tls-certcheck=off. This includes the issuer
CA of the certificate (so you can trust that CA via
tls_trust_file), and the fingerprint of the certificate (so you
can trust that particular certificate via tls_fingerprint).
TLS also allows the server to verify the identity of the client.
For this purpose, the client has to present a certificate issued
by a CA that the server trusts. To present that certificate, the
client also needs the matching key file. You can set the cer-
tificate and key files using tls_cert_file and tls_key_file.
This mechanism can also be used to authenticate users, so that
traditional user / password authentication is not necessary any-
more. See the external mechanism in auth.
You can also use client certificates stored on some external au-
thentication device by specifying GnuTLS device URIs in
tls_cert_file and tls_key_file. You can find the correct URIs
using p11tool --list-privkeys --login (p11tool is bundled with
GnuTLS). If your device requires a PIN to access the data, you
can specify that using one of the password mechanisms (e.g.
passwordeval, password).
tls_starttls [(on|off)]
Choose the TLS variant: start TLS from within the session (on,
default), or tunnel the session through TLS (off).
tls_trust_file file
Activate server certificate verification using a list of trusted
Certification Authorities (CAs). The default is the special
value "system", which selects the system default. An empty argu-
ment disables trust in CAs. If you select a file, it must be in
PEM format, and you should also use tls_crl_file.
tls_crl_file [file]
Deprecated. This sets a certificate revocation list (CRL) file
for TLS, to check for revoked certificates (an empty argument,
which is the default, disables this). Nowadays automatic OCSP
checks replace CRL file checks.
tls_fingerprint [fingerprint]
Set the fingerprint of a single certificate to accept for TLS.
This certificate will be trusted regardless of its contents
(this overrides tls_trust_file). The fingerprint should be of
type SHA256, but can for backwards compatibility also be of type
SHA1 or MD5 (please avoid this). The format should be
01:23:45:67:.... Use --serverinfo --tls --tls-certcheck=off
--tls-fingerprint= to get the server certificate fingerprint.
tls_key_file file
Send a client certificate to the server (use this together with
tls_cert_file}). The file must contain the private key of a
certificate in PEM format. An empty argument disables this fea-
ture.
tls_cert_file file
Send a client certificate to the server (use this together with
tls_key_file). The file must contain a certificate in PEM for-
mat. An empty argument disables this feature.
tls_certcheck [(on|off)]
Enable or disable checks of the server certificate. They are en-
abled by default. Disabling them will override tls_trust_file
and tls_fingerprint. WARNING: When the checks are disabled, TLS
sessions will not be secure!
tls_priorities [priorities]
Set priorities for TLS session parameters. The default is set by
the TLS library and can be selected by using an empty argument
to this command. The interpretation of the priorities string de-
pends on the TLS library. Use --version to find out which TLS
library you use.
For GnuTLS, see the section on Priority Strings in the manual.
For libtls, the priorites string is a space-separated list of
parameter strings prefixed with either PROTOCOLS=, CIPHERS=, or
ECDHECURVES=. These parameter strings will be passed to the
functions tls_config_parse_protocols, tls_config_set_ciphers,
and tls_config_set_ecdhecurves. Unrecognized parts of the prior-
ities string will be ignored. Example: "PROTOCOLS=TLSv1.3 CI-
PHERS=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256 ECDHECURVES=P-384".
tls_host_override [host]
By default, TLS host verification uses the host name given by
the host command. This command allows one to use a different
host name for verification. This is only useful in special
cases.
tls_min_dh_prime_bits [bits]
Deprecated, use tls_priorities instead. Set or unset the mini-
mum number of Diffie-Hellman (DH) prime bits accepted for TLS
sessions. The default is set by the TLS library and can be se-
lected by using an empty argument to this command. Only lower
the default (for example to 512 bits) if there is no other way
to make TLS work with the remote server.
from envelope_from
Set the envelope-from address. The following substitution pat-
terns are supported:
%U will be replaced by $USER, or if that fails by $LOGNAME, or
if that fails by the login name of the user running msmtp.
%H will be replaced by $HOSTNAME, or if that fails by the host
name of the system.
%C will be replaced by the canonical name of %H.
%M will be replaced by the contents of /etc/mailname (poten-
tially a different directory is used depending on the build con-
figuration; see the output of msmtp --version and look for the
location of the system configuration file).
Note that the obsolete auto_from command replaces this envelope-
from address.
To enforce the use of this envelope-from address and ignore the
-f / --from option, see the allow_from_override command.
Furthermore, the envelope-from address may be a wildcard pattern
as used for file name matching in the shell. This is the case if
it contains one of the characters ?, * or [. This allows a va-
riety of envelope-from addresses given with the --from option to
match a single account.
allow_from_override (on|off)
By default, the --from option overrides the from command. Set
to off to disable this.
dsn_notify (off|condition)
This command sets the condition(s) under which the mail system
should send DSN (Delivery Status Notification) messages. The ar-
gument 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 follow-
ing: 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.
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 de-
cides 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.
set_from_header [(auto|on|off)]
When to set a From header: auto adds a From header if the mail
does not have one (this is the default), on always sets a From
header and overrides any existing one, and off never sets a From
header.
If the mail server rejects the mail because its From header does
not match the envelope-from address (a common anti-spam mea-
sure), then you might want to set this option to on.
The From header is created based on the envelope-from address.
Disable allow_from_override to prevent programs from setting
their own envelope-from address.
For compatibility with older versions, add_missing_from_header
[(on|off)] is still supported and corresponds to the auto and
off settings.
set_date_header [(auto|off)]
When to set a Date header: auto adds a Date header if the mail
does not have one (this is the default), and off never sets a
Date header.
For compatibility with older versions, add_missing_date_header
[(on|off)] is still supported and corresponds to the auto and
off settings.
set_msgid_header [(auto|off)]
When to set a Message-ID header: auto adds a Message-ID header
if the mail does not have one (this is the default), and off
never sets a Message-ID header.
remove_bcc_headers [(on|off)]
This command controls whether to remove Bcc headers. The default
is to remove them.
undisclosed_recipients [(on|off)]
When set, the original To, Cc, and Bcc headers of the mail are
removed and a single new header line "To: undisclosed-recipi-
ents:;" is added. The default setting is off.
logfile [file]
An empty argument disables logging (this is the default).
When logging is enabled by choosing a log file, msmtp will ap-
pend one line to the log file for each mail it tries to send via
the account that this log file was chosen for.
The line will include the following information: date and time
in the format specified by logfile_time_format, host name of the
SMTP server, whether TLS was used, whether authentication was
used, authentication user name (only if authentication is used),
envelope-from address, recipient addresses, size of the mail as
transferred to the server (only if the delivery succeeded), SMTP
status code and SMTP error message (only in case of failure and
only if available), error message (only in case of failure and
only if available), exit code (from sysexits.h; EX_OK indicates
success).
If the filename is a dash (-), msmtp prints the log line to the
standard output.
logfile_time_format [fmt]
Set or unset the log file time format. This will be used as the
format string for the strftime() function. An empty argument
chooses the default ("%b %d %H:%M:%S").
syslog [(on|off|facility)]
Enable or disable syslog logging. The facility can be one of
LOG_USER, LOG_MAIL, LOG_LOCAL0, ..., LOG_LOCAL7. The default is
LOG_USER.
Each time msmtp tries to send a mail via the account that con-
tains this syslog command, it will log one entry to the syslog
service with the chosen facility.
The line will include the following information: host name of
the SMTP server, whether TLS was used, whether authentication
was used, envelope-from address, recipient addresses, size of
the mail as transferred to the server (only if the delivery suc-
ceeded), SMTP status code and SMTP error message (only in case
of failure and only if available), error message (only in case
of failure and only if available), exit code (from sysexits.h;
EX_OK indicates success).
aliases [file]
Replace local recipients with addresses in the aliases file.
The aliases file is a cleartext file containing mappings between
a local address and a list of replacement addresses. The map-
pings are of the form:
local: someone@example.com, person@domain.example
Multiple replacement addresses are separated with commas. Com-
ments start with `#' and continue to the end of the line.
The local address default has special significance and is
matched if the local address is not found in the aliases file.
If no default alias is found, then the local address is left as
is.
Note that alias expansion only affects the mail envelope. The To
and Cc headers are not modified.
An empty argument to the aliases command disables the replace-
ment of local addresses. This is the default.
auto_from [(on|off)]
Obsolete; you can achieve the same and more using the substitu-
tion patterns of the from command.
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 lo-
gin name of the current user. The domain part can be set with
the maildomain command. If the maildomain is empty, the enve-
lope-from address will only consist of the user name and not
have a domain part. When auto_from is disabled, the envelope-
from address must be set explicitly.
maildomain [domain]
Obsolete; you can achieve the same and more using the substitu-
tion patterns of the from command.
Set a domain part for the generation of an envelope-from ad-
dress. This is only used when auto_from is on. The domain may be
empty.
EXAMPLES
Configuration file
# Example for a user configuration file ~/.msmtprc
#
# This file focusses on TLS and authentication. Features not used here
include
# logging, timeouts, SOCKS proxies, TLS parameters, Delivery Status No-
tification
# (DSN) settings, and more.
# Set default values for all following accounts.
defaults
# Use the mail submission port 587 instead of the SMTP port 25.
port 587
# Always use TLS.
tls on
# Set a list of trusted CAs for TLS. The default is to use system set-
tings, but
# you can select your own file.
#tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
# A freemail service
account freemail
# Host name of the SMTP server
host smtp.freemail.example
# As an alternative to tls_trust_file, you can use tls_fingerprint
# to pin a single certificate. You have to update the fingerprint when
the
# server certificate changes, but an attacker cannot trick you into ac-
cepting
# a fraudulent certificate. Get the fingerprint with
# $ msmtp --serverinfo --tls --tls-certcheck=off
--host=smtp.freemail.example
#tls_fingerprint 00:11:22:33:44:55:66:77:88:99:AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF:00:11
:22:33
# Envelope-from address
from joe_smith@freemail.example
# Authentication. The password is given using one of five methods, see
below.
auth on
user joe.smith
# Password method 1: Add the password to the system keyring, and let
msmtp get
# it automatically. To set the keyring password using Gnome's libse-
cret:
# $ secret-tool store --label=msmtp \
# host smtp.freemail.example \
# service smtp \
# user joe.smith
# Password method 2: Store the password in an encrypted file, and tell
msmtp
# which command to use to decrypt it. This is usually used with GnuPG,
as in
# this example. Usually gpg-agent will ask once for the decryption
password.
passwordeval gpg2 --no-tty -q -d ~/.msmtp-password.gpg
# Password method 3: Store the password directly in this file. Usually
it is not
# a good idea to store passwords in cleartext files. If you do it any-
way, at
# least make sure that this file can only be read by yourself.
#password secret123
# Password method 4: Store the password in ~/.netrc. This method is
probably not
# relevant anymore.
# Password method 5: Do not specify a password. Msmtp will then prompt
you for
# it. This means you need to be able to type into a terminal when msmtp
runs.
# A second mail address at the same freemail service
account freemail2 : freemail
from joey@freemail.example
# The SMTP server of your ISP
account isp
host mail.isp.example
from smithjoe@isp.example
auth on
user 12345
# Set a default account
account default : freemail
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 (but note that you cannot set a
password this way):
set sendmail="/path/to/msmtp --host=mailhub -f me@example.com --tls
--tls-trust-file=trust.crt"
If you have multiple mail accounts in your msmtp configuration file and
let Mutt use the -f option to choose the right 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"
Using msmtp with mail
Define a default account, and put the following in your ~/.mailrc:
set sendmail="/path/to/msmtp"
Using msmtp with Tor
Use the following settings:
proxy_host 127.0.0.1
proxy_port 9050
tls on
Use an IP address as proxy host name, so that msmtp does not leak a DNS
query when resolving it.
TLS is required to prevent exit hosts from reading your SMTP session.
Do not set domain to something that you do not want to reveal (do not
set it at all if possible).
Aliases file
# Example aliases file
# Send root to Joe and Jane
root: joe_smith@example.com, jane_chang@example.com
# Send cron to Mark
cron: mark_jones@example.com
# Send everything else to admin
default: admin@domain.example
FILES
SYSCONFDIR/msmtprc
System configuration file. Use --version to find out what
SYSCONFDIR is on your platform.
~/.msmtprc or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/msmtp/config
User configuration file.
~/.netrc and SYSCONFDIR/netrc
The netrc file contains login information. Before prompting for
a password, msmtp will search it in ~/.netrc and
SYSCONFDIR/netrc.
ENVIRONMENT
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 sys-
tem specific default directory is used.
A temporary file is only created when the -t/--read-recipients
or --read-envelope-from 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).
EMAIL, SMTPSERVER
These environment variables are used only if neither --host nor
--account is used and there is no default account defined in the
configuration files. In this case, the host name is taken from
SMTPSERVER, and the envelope from address is taken from EMAIL,
unless overridden by --from or --read-envelope-from. Currently
SMTPSERVER must contain a plain host name (no URL), and EMAIL
must contain a plain address (no names or additional informa-
tion).
AUTHORS
msmtp was written by Martin Lambers <marlam@marlam.de>.
Other authors are listed in the AUTHORS file in the source distribu-
tion.
SEE ALSO
sendmail(8), netrc(5) or ftp(1)
2022-06 MSMTP(1)
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