Project

General

Profile

RedmineReceivingEmails » History » Version 23

Roland ..., 2009-07-24 12:12

1 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
h1. Receiving emails
2
3 4 Jean-Philippe Lang
{{>toc}}
4
5 17 Jean-Philippe Lang
As of 0.8.0, Redmine can be configured to allow issue creation or comments via email.
6 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
7
h2. Setup
8
9 7 Jean-Philippe Lang
You can configure Redmine to receive emails in one of the following ways:
10
11
* Forwarding emails from your email server:
12
13
  * Pros: works with a remote mail server, email are processed instantly, fast (no environment reloading)
14 10 Jean-Philippe Lang
  * Cons: needs some configuration on your mail transfer agent (eg. Postfix, Sendmail...)
15 7 Jean-Philippe Lang
16
* Fetching emails from an IMAP server:
17
18
  * Pros: easy to setup, no need to configure your MTA, works with a remote mail server
19 9 Jean-Philippe Lang
  * Cons: emails are not processed instantly (a cron job needs to be added to read emails periodically)
20 7 Jean-Philippe Lang
21
* Reading emails from standard input:
22
23
  * Pros: fine for testing purpose
24
  * Cons: slow (the environment is reloaded each time an email is read), needs some configuration on your MTA
25 4 Jean-Philippe Lang
26
h3. Forwarding emails from your email server
27
28
A standalone script can be used to forward incoming emails from your mail server.
29
This script reads a raw email from the standard input and forward it to Redmine via a HTTP request.
30
It can be found in your redmine directory: @extra/mail_handler/rdm-mailhandler.rb@.
31
32
In order to use it, you have to enable the API that receive emails:
33
Go to _Application settings_ -> _Incoming emails_, check *Enable WS for incoming emails* and enter or generate a secret key.
34
35
Copy @rdm-mailhandler.rb@ to your mail server and configure your MTA.
36
37 5 Jean-Philippe Lang
Usage:
38 4 Jean-Philippe Lang
39 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
<pre>
40 5 Jean-Philippe Lang
rdm-mailhandler [options] --url=<Redmine URL> --key=<API key>
41 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
42 5 Jean-Philippe Lang
Required:
43
  -u, --url                      URL of the Redmine server
44
  -k, --key                      Redmine API key
45
  
46
General options:
47
  -h, --help                     show this help
48
  -v, --verbose                  show extra information
49
  -V, --version                  show version information and exit
50 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
51 5 Jean-Philippe Lang
Issue attributes control options:
52
  -p, --project=PROJECT          identifier of the target project
53
  -t, --tracker=TRACKER          name of the target tracker
54
      --category=CATEGORY        name of the target category
55
      --priority=PRIORITY        name of the target priority
56
  -o, --allow-override=ATTRS     allow email content to override attributes
57
                                 specified by previous options
58
                                 ATTRS is a comma separated list of attributes
59 6 Jean-Philippe Lang
</pre>
60
61 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
Examples:
62 6 Jean-Philippe Lang
63
<pre>
64 5 Jean-Philippe Lang
  # No project specified. Emails MUST contain the 'Project' keyword:
65
  rdm-mailhandler --url http://redmine.domain.foo --key secret
66
  
67
  # Fixed project and default tracker specified, but emails can override
68
  # both tracker and priority attributes:
69
  rdm-mailhandler --url https://domain.foo/redmine --key secret \\
70
                  --project foo \\
71
                  --tracker bug \\
72
                  --allow-override tracker,priority
73
</pre>
74
75
Here is an example for a Postfix alias:
76
77
<pre>
78
foo: "|/path/to/rdm-mailhandler.rb --url http://redmine.domain --key secret --project foo"
79
</pre> 
80 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
81
h3. Fetching emails from an IMAP server
82
83 20 Kurt Miebach
A rake task (@redmine:email:receive_imap@) can be used to fetch incoming emails from an IMAP server. When you run the rake command from a cron job you can include the switch @-f /path/to/redmine/appdir/Rakefile@ on the rake command, because otherwise the rakefile is not found. This is an example line for a cron file that fetches mails every 30 minutes:
84 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
85 21 Kurt Miebach
<code>
86
*/30 * * * * redmineuser rake -f /path/to/redmine/appdir/Rakefile redmine:email:receive_imap RAILS_ENV="production" host=imap.foo.bar username=redmine@somenet.foo password=xxx 
87
</code>
88 20 Kurt Miebach
89 22 Kurt Miebach
The command has to go on a single line in your cronfile. Also see the other examples below, which only show the rake commands without the @-f@ option and without the cron part. 
90 20 Kurt Miebach
91
92 6 Jean-Philippe Lang
It can be necessary that you open the firewall on the machine for outgoing TCP connections to IMAP port 143.
93 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
94 6 Jean-Philippe Lang
Available IMAP options:
95 20 Kurt Miebach
<pre>
96 6 Jean-Philippe Lang
  host=HOST                IMAP server host (default: 127.0.0.1)
97
  port=PORT                IMAP server port (default: 143)
98
  ssl=SSL                  Use SSL? (default: false)
99 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
  username=USERNAME        IMAP account
100 6 Jean-Philippe Lang
  password=PASSWORD        IMAP password
101 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
  folder=FOLDER            IMAP folder to read (default: INBOX)
102 20 Kurt Miebach
</pre>
103 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
Issue attributes control options:
104 20 Kurt Miebach
<pre>
105 6 Jean-Philippe Lang
  project=PROJECT          identifier of the target project
106
  tracker=TRACKER          name of the target tracker
107
  category=CATEGORY        name of the target category
108
  priority=PRIORITY        name of the target priority
109
  allow_override=ATTRS     allow email content to override attributes
110
                           specified by previous options
111
                           ATTRS is a comma separated list of attributes
112
  
113 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
</pre>
114 18 Eric Davis
115
These options are available on trunk or the upcoming 0.8.1
116
117
<pre>
118
  move_on_success=MAILBOX  move emails that were successfully received
119 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
                           to MAILBOX instead of deleting them
120 18 Eric Davis
  move_on_failure=MAILBOX  move emails that were ignored to MAILBOX
121
</pre>
122
123 20 Kurt Miebach
Examples for the rake command:
124 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
125 6 Jean-Philippe Lang
<pre>
126
  # No project specified. Emails MUST contain the 'Project' keyword:
127
  
128 11 Thomas Lecavelier
  rake redmine:email:receive_imap RAILS_ENV="production" \\
129 6 Jean-Philippe Lang
    host=imap.foo.bar username=redmine@somenet.foo password=xxx
130 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
131
132 6 Jean-Philippe Lang
  # Fixed project and default tracker specified, but emails can override
133
  # both tracker and priority attributes:
134
  
135 11 Thomas Lecavelier
  rake redmine:email:receive_imap RAILS_ENV="production" \\
136 6 Jean-Philippe Lang
    host=imap.foo.bar username=redmine@somenet.foo password=xxx ssl=1 \\
137
    project=foo \\
138
    tracker=bug \\
139
    allow_override=tracker,priority
140 18 Eric Davis
141
  # Move successful emails to the 'read' mailbox and failed emails to
142
  # the 'failed' mailbox
143
  
144
  rake redmine:email:receive_imap RAILS_ENV="production" \\
145
    host=imap.foo.bar username=redmine@somenet.foo password=xxx \\
146
    move_on_success=read move_on_failure=failed
147
148 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
</pre>
149
150 6 Jean-Philippe Lang
151 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
Emails that are ignored (unknown user, unknown project...) are marked as 'Seen' but are not deleted from the IMAP server.
152
153 23 Roland ...
The option _allow_override_ is not only for overriding default values given to rake, but for every attribute in a mail. If you want to override the tracker in your mail you have to put the _allow_override=tracker_ as parameter.
154
155 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
h3. Reading emails from standard input
156
157
A rake task (@redmine:email:receive@) can be used to read a single raw email from the standard input.
158
159 6 Jean-Philippe Lang
<pre>
160
Issue attributes control options:
161
  project=PROJECT          identifier of the target project
162
  tracker=TRACKER          name of the target tracker
163
  category=CATEGORY        name of the target category
164
  priority=PRIORITY        name of the target priority
165
  allow_override=ATTRS     allow email content to override attributes
166
                           specified by previous options
167
                           ATTRS is a comma separated list of attributes
168
</pre>
169 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
170 6 Jean-Philippe Lang
Examples:
171 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
172 6 Jean-Philippe Lang
<pre>
173
  # No project specified. Emails MUST contain the 'Project' keyword:
174
  rake redmine:email:read RAILS_ENV="production" < raw_email
175 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
176 6 Jean-Philippe Lang
  # Fixed project and default tracker specified, but emails can override
177
  # both tracker and priority attributes:
178
  rake redmine:email:read RAILS_ENV="production" \\
179
                  project=foo \\
180
                  tracker=bug \\
181
                  allow_override=tracker,priority < raw_email
182
</pre>
183 23 Roland ...
184
The option _allow_override_ is not only for overriding default values given to rake, but for every attribute in a mail. If you want to override the tracker in your mail you have to put the _allow_override=tracker_ as parameter.
185 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
186
187
h2. How it works
188
189 12 Eric Davis
When receiving an email, Redmine uses the From address of the email to find the corresponding user. Emails received from unknown or locked users are ignored.
190 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
191
If the email subject contains something like "Re: *[xxxxxxx !#123]*", the email is processed as a reply and a note is added to issue !#123. Otherwise, a new issue is created.
192 3 Jean-Philippe Lang
193 15 Jean-Philippe Lang
h3. Target project
194
195 16 Jean-Philippe Lang
The target project can be specified using the @project@ option when receiving emails.
196 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
197 16 Jean-Philippe Lang
If you don't use this option, users have to specify in the email body which project the issue should be added to. This can be done by inserting a line in the email body like this: @"Project: foo"@.
198
199 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
Example (email body):
200
201
<pre>
202
This is a new ticket that will be added to project foo.
203
Here we have the ticket description
204
[...]
205
206
Project: foo
207
</pre>
208
209 16 Jean-Philippe Lang
You can set a default project using the @project@ option and let users override this default project by using the @allow-override@ option when receiving emails.
210
Example:
211
212
<pre>
213
  # Create issues on project foo by default
214
  rake redmine:email:receive_imap [...] project=foo allow_override=project
215
</pre>
216
217 14 Jean-Philippe Lang
Of course, user permissions are checked and this email would be ignored if the user who sent this email is not allowed to add issues to project foo.
218 16 Jean-Philippe Lang
Make sure that the target project doesn't use *required* custom fields with no default value for its issues, otherwise the creation of the issue will fail.
219 15 Jean-Philippe Lang
220
h3. Issue attributes
221 8 Jean-Philippe Lang
222 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
Based on the options you use when receiving emails (see @allow-override@ option), users may be able to override some attributes when submitting an issue.
223 12 Eric Davis
This can be done by using the following keywords in the email body (just like @Project@): @Tracker@, @Category@, @Priority@, @Status@.
224 8 Jean-Philippe Lang
225 16 Jean-Philippe Lang
Example (email body):
226 8 Jean-Philippe Lang
227
<pre>
228
This is a new ticket that overrides a few attributes
229
[...]
230
231
Project: foo
232 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
Tracker: Bug
233 8 Jean-Philippe Lang
Priority: Urgent
234 12 Eric Davis
Status: Resolved
235 8 Jean-Philippe Lang
</pre>
236 15 Jean-Philippe Lang
237 1 Jean-Philippe Lang
h3. Watchers
238
239
If the user who sends the email has the 'Add issue watchers' permission, users that are in To or Cc field of the email are automatically added as watchers of the created issue.
240 16 Jean-Philippe Lang
241
h3. Email format and attachments
242
243
Redmine tries to use the plain text part of the email to fill the description of the issue.
244
If a HTML-only email is received, HTML tags are removed from its body.
245
246
Email attachments are automatically attached to the issue, unless their size exceeds the [[RedmineSettings#Attachment-max-size|maximum attachment size]] defined in the application settings.