LightSMTPagents

This page contains several lightweight SMTP agents (see MailConcept) which you can call from mutt via the "$sendmail" variable, if you think that a full blown sendmail/postfix/qmail is overkill. Feel free to add your comments so that others can make a better decision which one to choose.

• ssmtp (http://packages.debian.org/testing/mail/ssmtp.html)
  • Manual is in the source tarball. Supports TLS, IPv6 and MD5-auth. Optionally rewrites From: header.
  • SMTP Password has to be saved in a configuration file. No comandline authentification possible.
• nullmailer http://untroubled.org/nullmailer/
  • Supports SMTP AUTH PLAIN as of 1.02. No SSL.
• nomail (http://www.luky.org/opensrc/nomail/)
  • Can rewrite From, delete Message-ID, receive mail for local users, and handle aliases, queueing.
  • Supports IPv6 if you apply [patch].
• nbsmtp (http://nbsmtp.ferdyx.org/)
  • Supports TLS, SYSLOG, SASL, IPv6, STARTTLS, no need to configure it even though it supports a config file.
• esmtp (http://esmtp.sourceforge.net/)
  • fully sendmail command line compatible
  • supports AUTH SMTP extension, with the CRAM-MD5 and NTLM SASL mechanisms, StartTLS? SMTP extension
  • feature that autochooses the server according to $from
• msmtp (http://msmtp.sourceforge.net/)
  • Supports TLS, IPv6, DSN, various authentication methods. One-line-configuration in .muttrc.
  • feature that autochooses the server according to $from
  • SMTP Password has to be saved in a configuration file. No comandline authentification possible.
• mini_sendmail (http://www.acme.com/software/mini_sendmail/)
  • set sendmail="mini_sendmail -t -ssmtpserver" ; unset $use_envelope_from
  • no space between -s and smtpserver, supports IPv6.
  • no support for smtp authentification
• nullclient (http://www.postfix.org/, http://www.sendmail.org/)
  • sendmail can be configured to simply pass on all mail and do nothing else fancy, see nullclient feature in cf/README or postfix-doc.
  • This might save you an installation of extra software, since sendmail or postfix is installed by default on many systems.
• masqmail (http://innominate.org/kurth/masqmail/)
  • Not really lightweight, a full MTA, depends on Glib (no, not Gtk)
• smtppush(.py) (http://jclement.ca/software/smtppush.py/)
  • A cross-platform clone of Michael Elkins' SMTPPUSH program.
• sendmail(.py) (http://www.ynform.org/w/Pub/SendmailPy)
  • A python script, compatible with mutt, which uses the most secure channel it can find
• Putmail (http://putmail.sourceforge.net/)
  • Simple configuration. Optional specific settings depending on the "From:" header.
  • Supports SMTP authentication, TLS and IPv6 and has an optional, simple queuing system.
  • Multiplatform. Written in Python.
• DMA (DragonFly Mail Agent, http://packages.debian.org/de/sid/dma)
  • TLS/SSL and SMTP authentication
  • /etc/dma/{dma.conf,auth.conf,virtusertable}
  • set sendmail="/usr/sbin/dma -Ac -i"
• Exim (http://www.exim.org/)
  • Exim is a full-blown MTA, but has a configuration option (mua_wrapper) to behave as a simple non-queuing SMTP client.
  • Complex but very flexible configuration allows full control of routing decisions, header rewriting, authentication, TLS, IPv6, ...
  • http://www.exim.org/exim-html-current/doc/html/spec_html/ch48.html
• ssh
  • authentification workaround
  • 'set sendmail="ssh remotehost sendmail ..."'
  • authentification (optional only once) possible with ssh keys.
  • Won't work with all systems, you can't reach all smtp servers with ssh