# Sendmail config

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sendmail-config/92061>\
**Category:** Deployment\
**Created:** [April 15, 2007, 5:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sendmail-config/92061 "2007-04-15T17:04:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![taylorstrait](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/b5a626/32.png) [@taylorstrait](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/taylorstrait)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2007, 5:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sendmail-config/92061/1 "2007-04-15T17:04:01Z")

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Linux rookie here. To send mail from my rails app, is all I need:

1. sendmail
2. user name/pw

For example, here is my config:

# mail server config

config.action\_mailer.delivery\_method = :smtp

config.action\_mailer.server\_settings = {  
:address =\> “[buwatercooler.org](http://buwatercooler.org)”,  
:port =\> 25,  
:domain =\> “[buwatercooler.org](http://buwatercooler.org)”,  
:authentication =\> :login,  
:user\_name =\> “server”,  
:password =\> “”  
}

config.action\_mailer.default\_charset = “utf-8”

As long as I have a user “server” on the linux box should this work? My  
emails aren’t going through. Is there some element of the configuration  
I have missed?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![taylorstrait](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/b5a626/32.png) [@taylorstrait](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/taylorstrait)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2007, 9:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sendmail-config/92061/2 "2007-04-15T21:26:08Z")

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Taylor S. wrote:

> Linux rookie here. To send mail from my rails app, is all I need:
> 
> 1. sendmail
> 2. user name/pw
> 
> For example, here is my config:
> 
> # mail server config
> 
> config.action\_mailer.delivery\_method = :smtp
> 
> config.action\_mailer.server\_settings = {  
> :address =\> “[buwatercooler.org](http://buwatercooler.org)”,  
> :port =\> 25,  
> :domain =\> “[buwatercooler.org](http://buwatercooler.org)”,  
> :authentication =\> :login,  
> :user\_name =\> “server”,  
> :password =\> “”  
> }
> 
> config.action\_mailer.default\_charset = “utf-8”
> 
> As long as I have a user “server” on the linux box should this work? My  
> emails aren’t going through. Is there some element of the configuration  
> I have missed?

Is sendmail actually working? That is, can you telnet to port 25 on this  
machine from another machine and get something like:

Connected to [westlake.tbtm.org](http://westlake.tbtm.org).  
Escape character is ‘^]’.  
220 localhost.localdomain ESMTP Sendmail 8.13.8/8.13.8; Sun, 15 Apr 2007  
14:17:05 -0500

If so, what you have should probably work. I’ve found that  
:authentication =\> :plain  
works better on some servers, even when they claim to support :login.

If not, you need to fix your sendmail configuration, which is a bit  
beyond the scope of this forum:-)

–Al Evans

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![taylorstrait](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/b5a626/32.png) [@taylorstrait](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/taylorstrait)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 1:41am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sendmail-config/92061/3 "2007-04-17T01:41:59Z")

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On Apr 15, 8:04 am, Taylor S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
wrote:

> Linux rookie here. To send mail from my rails app, is all I need:
> 
> 1. sendmail
> 2. user name/pw

There are alternatives to sendmail, such as exim, qmail, and  
postfix.

I recommend exim, which is dead-easy to set up if you are using Debian.