codebutlerIntroduction
rmailt is an xmpp transport that makes it possible to send emails the same way you send instant messages.
rmailt was written primarily as a way to talk to cellphones as an alternative to SMS, as many phones (blackberry, all japanese phones, etc.) have a dedicated email address.
rmailt was created by Eric Butler and is licensed under the GPLv3 or later. If you have any questions, comments, bug reports, and/or patches, please contact me via xmpp or email at eric@extremeboredom.net.
Installation
Currently rmailt is designed to be installed as a debian package. If you're compiling from source, run the following command to create a .deb file:
$ make deb
This will create a .deb package in the parent directory. Unfortunetly, not all of the dependencies are currently available as debian packages, so you'll have to install the following gems:
- xmpp4r
- tmail
- tlsmail
- datamapper
- SyslogLogger
- do_sqlite3
If you can help debianize these, that would be great.
Install the package you created earlier:
$ sudo dpkg -i ../rmailt_0.1+git20080928-0.deb
Configuring ejabberd
Ejabberd needs to be configured for the new transport. Find the Listened ports
section and add the following inside the {listen, [ array:
% Mail Transport
{5349, ejabberd_service, [{host, "mail.xmpp.example.com",
[{password, "letmein"}]}]},
Set the port, host (this is the transport's JID), and password appropriately and keep them handy. You'll need to enter these same values into the rmailt configuration file next.
Configuration rMailt
After installing the package, you'll need to configure it. Copy /usr/share/doc/rmailt/rmailt.yml.example to /etc/rmailt.yml and edit the values. port, jid, and secret need to match the values in your ejabberd config.
Configuring Postfix
rmailt assumes that any email sent to your transport's hostname (eg *@mail.xmpp.example.com) will be delivered to a single IMAP account. This can be done using the postfix virtual mailbox feature.
For example, if you have an IMAP account called xmpp, you would add the following to /etc/postfix/vmailbox:
@mail.xmpp.example.com xmpp/
And the following to /etc/postfix/main.cf:
virtual_mailbox_base = /var/mail
virtual_mailbox_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/vmailbox
virtual_uid_maps = static:65534
virtual_gid_maps = static:65534
You can read more about this in the man page.
$ man 8postfix virtual
Usage
Once the transport is successfully connected to your XMPP server, open your client's service discovery window and look for SMTP Transport. Select it and click Register. If you configured an access password in the config file, enter it here. You only need to register once.
After you are registered, select your client's Add Contact option. The dialog should have a new option to change the protocol to smtp. Select this and enter the email address you wish to contact.
Any messages sent to this contact will be sent on as emails.