Most tutorials focus on setting up ActionMailer to send smtp emails via a gmail account.
But, if we are talking about your production server, then it is even simpler to send smtp email from your localhost:
# Install postfix, which is a program that allows your server to send out smtp emails sudo apt-get install postfix # ... and accept all the defaults
And none of the below configuration necessary anymore, so it actually cleans things up!
config.action_mailer.delivery_method = :smtp
config.action_mailer.smtp_settings = {
address: "smtp.gmail.com",
port: 587,
domain: "railscasts.com",
authentication: "plain",
enable_starttls_auto: true,
user_name: ENV["GMAIL_USERNAME"],
password: ENV["GMAIL_PASSWORD"]
}
If you run into a
hostname "localhost" does not match the server certificate
error, then you can add:
# in config/application.rb or in the appropriate env file in config/environments/, add:
config.action_mailer.smtp_settings = { enable_starttls_auto: false }
This works well from the production server, but will likely NOT work from your development machine, since the emails will be rejected as coming from a non-trusted server. For instance, I found this below message in my Postfix log. So I recommend using the mailcatcher gem in your development environment instead.
# message in var/log/mail.log telling me my email was rejected as non-trusted:
A96DD803F0: to=, relay=gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com[173.194.79.27]:25, delay=4.8, delays=0.07/0/2.2/2.6, dsn=5.7.1, status=bounced (host gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com[173.194.79.27] said: 550-5.7.1 [116.25.10.5] The IP you're using to send mail is not authorized to 550-5.7.1 send email directly to our servers. Please use the SMTP relay at your 550-5.7.1 service provider instead. Learn more at 550 5.7.1 http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?answer=10336 ei3si11330705pbc.80 - gsmtp (in reply to end of DATA command))
Teddy Widom 