Email configuration in timlegge/docker-foswiki. Should it work out of the box?

I am installing timlegge/docker-foswiki on a new computer. I really like the convenience of installation. And the instructions work fine. However...

When it comes to configure {WebMasterEmail} I get trouble.

First attempt gave the following messages:

1. Attempting to configure a mailer program
2. Unable to locate a known external mail program, trying sendmail
3. Unable to identify /usr/bin/busybox.
4. Mail configuration failed. Foswiki will not be able to send mail.

Item 3 is correct, busybox is not at /usr/bin/busybox but at /bin/busybox. I fixed that with:

ln -s /bin/busybox /usr/bin/busybox

testing sendmail with:

echo "test sendmail" | sendmail -v me@mydomain

works on the host, but in the container shows:

sendmail: can't connect to remote host (127.0.0.1): Connection refused

Googling the message indicates that there should be a sendmail daemon running in the container. That is not the case:

bash-5.1# ps ax
PID   USER     TIME  COMMAND
    1 root      0:00 sh docker-entrypoint.sh
   15 root      0:00 {iwatch} /usr/bin/perl -T /usr/bin/iwatch -d
   19 root      0:00 nginx: master process nginx -g daemon off;
   24 nginx     0:00 nginx: worker process
   25 nginx     0:00 nginx: worker process
   27 nginx     0:00 nginx: worker process
   28 nginx     0:00 nginx: worker process
   29 root      0:00 /bin/bash
   54 root      0:00 foswiki-fcgi-pm
   55 root      0:02 foswiki-fcgi
   56 root      0:02 foswiki-fcgi
   57 root      0:02 foswiki-fcgi
   58 root      0:04 foswiki-fcgi
   59 root      0:03 foswiki-fcgi
   66 root      0:00 ps ax
bash-5.1# 

I can fix this by installing sendmail, but I have a recollection that this used to work 2 years ago. That installation is long gone, so I cannot confirm it.

Hence my question: should I expect this to work?

And if so, what is the easiest way to get this to work?

-- BramVanOosterhout - 04 Oct 2022

I don't think that timlegge/docker-foswiki has any kind of outgoing mail system pre-installed and configured. You could install a full-featured email server but I think a far simpler option would be to install something like ssmtp and route outgoing email thru an external ssmtp server (such as gmail). I've used this on multiple systems and find it is easy to set up and works.

-- LynnwoodBrown - 04 Oct 2022

Thanks Lynwood,

Yes, I ended up using sendmail routing to an external SMTP server is what I ended up doing. See Question2130. I would have posted that here, but I could not find this question and thought I failed to post it.

Thanks for your response here. And sad I did not find it earlier.

-- BramVanOosterhout - 06 Oct 2022

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