CAUTION: This e-mail originated outside the University of Southampton.

David

Thank you for this clarity. I'm looking forward to implementing this tomorrow! 

From: David R Newman <drn@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2025 4:36:32 PM
To: eprints-tech@ecs.soton.ac.uk <eprints-tech@ecs.soton.ac.uk>; Will Hughes <w.p.hughes@reading.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: [EP-tech] Sending email from eprints using postfix

Hi Will,

I don't normally try bothering to configure email sending in EPrints with no configuration it will just pass in on the server it is running on's mail server (e.g. sendmail, postfix, etc.).  I then configure that as a smarthost, as it is much better documented on how you need to configure that to authenticate email sending (e.g. using SMTP2GO), especially if you have unusual setup.

In 3.4.5 we introduced a separate $c->{senderemail} from $c->{adminemail}.  This means that email sent list the senderemail in the from address but still user the adminemail in the email signature at the end of the message body and sets this adminemail as the reply-to address.  Beyond senderemail and adminemail the only real email configuration I am away of is specifying the mail sending function you want to call with $c->{send_email} in lib/cfg.d/email.pl and the executable and invocation settings for sendmail in /opt/eprints3/lib/syscfg.d/executables.pl and /opt/eprints3/lib/syscfg.d/invocations.pl.  The former is where you could configure the equivalent to $c->{sendmail_program} and the latter $c->{sendmail_args}.  However, as the default for lib/cfg.d/email.pl is set to use the local mailserver (which I recommend is the best option as you can do mail configuration in a proper mail sending application), tweaking the sendmail settings will make no difference unless you change the $c->{send_email} (in lib/cfg.d/email.pl) to the following:

$c->{send_email} = \&EPrints::Email::send_mail_via_sendmail;

Regards

David Newman

CAUTION: This e-mail originated outside the University of Southampton.

CAUTION: This e-mail originated outside the University of Southampton.

OK, another day spent trying to overcome this issue. Put simply, my question is this:

How can I get the EPrints web interface to send email using the local Postfix sendmail, without hanging or trying to connect directly to SMTP2GO?

 

Please, if anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them.

 

Thank you

 

Best wishes

 

Will

 

From: eprints-tech-request@ecs.soton.ac.uk <eprints-tech-request@ecs.soton.ac.uk> On Behalf Of Will Hughes
Sent: 27 August 2025 19:36
To: EPrints.org Technical List <eprints-tech@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Subject: [EP-tech] Sending email from eprints using postfix

 

CAUTION: This e-mail originated outside the University of Southampton.

CAUTION: This e-mail originated outside the University of Southampton.

Hi

 

I have been struggling with this issue for a while now. As far as I can tell, I have configured everything I need to get postfix to work in sending eprints system emails.

 

Summarizing: EPrints 3.4 on Ubuntu 24.04 with Postfix configured to relay via SMTP2GO. From the command line, sending email as the eprints user works:

echo "Test message" | sudo -u eprints /usr/sbin/sendmail -v will.hughes.rdg@gmail.com

The message is delivered successfully.

 

When using the web interface to send email (notifications, test messages), the process hangs indefinitely.

Current config in cfg.d/00_email.pl:

$c->{sendmail_program} = "/usr/sbin/sendmail";

$c->{sendmail_args}    = "-oi -t";

$c->{email_from}       = 'abstracts@arcomabstracts.com';

$c->{email_from_name}  = 'ARCOM Abstracts';

$c->{email_reply_to}   = 'abstracts@arcom.ac.uk';

 

Direct SMTP via $c->{sendmail_method} = 'SMTP' also fails. Postfix logs show successful deliveries from CLI; no related errors appear when the web interface hangs.

 

Does anyone have similar experience and/or a solution to this quandary, please?

 

Best wishes

 

Will   

 

Will Hughes

Emeritus Professor of Construction Management and Economics

School of the Built Environment     

University of Reading, PO Box 219, Whiteknights

Reading, RG6 6DF, UK

 

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