Authentication
What is This Library?
This library provides functionality to send internet mail via SMTP, the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. For details of SMTP itself, see [RFC2821] (www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt).
What is This Library NOT?
This library does NOT provide functions to compose internet mails. You must create them by yourself. If you want better mail support, try RubyMail or TMail or search for alternatives in RubyGems.org or The Ruby Toolbox.
FYI: the official documentation on internet mail is: [RFC2822] (www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2822.txt).
Examples
Sending Messages
You must open a connection to an SMTP server before sending messages. The first argument is the address of your SMTP server, and the second argument is the port number. Using ::start with a block is the simplest way to do this. This way, the SMTP connection is closed automatically after the block is executed.
require 'net/smtp' Net::SMTP.start('your.smtp.server', 25) do |smtp| # Use the SMTP object smtp only in this block. end
Replace 'your.smtp.server' with your SMTP server. Normally your system manager or internet provider supplies a server for you.
Then you can send messages.
msgstr = <<END_OF_MESSAGE From: Your Name <your@mail.address> To: Destination Address <someone@example.com> Subject: test message Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2001 16:26:43 +0900 Message-Id: <unique.message.id.string@example.com> This is a test message. END_OF_MESSAGE require 'net/smtp' Net::SMTP.start('your.smtp.server', 25) do |smtp| smtp.send_message msgstr, 'your@mail.address', 'his_address@example.com' end
Closing the Session
You MUST close the SMTP session after sending messages, by calling the finish method:
# using SMTP#finish smtp = Net::SMTP.start('your.smtp.server', 25) smtp.send_message msgstr, 'from@address', 'to@address' smtp.finish
You can also use the block form of ::start/SMTP#start. This closes the SMTP session automatically:
# using block form of SMTP.start Net::SMTP.start('your.smtp.server', 25) do |smtp| smtp.send_message msgstr, 'from@address', 'to@address' end
I strongly recommend this scheme. This form is simpler and more robust.
HELO domain
In almost all situations, you must provide a third argument to ::start/SMTP#start. This is the domain name which you are on (the host to send mail from). It is called the “HELO domain”. The SMTP server will judge whether it should send or reject the SMTP session by inspecting the HELO domain.
Net::SMTP.start('your.smtp.server', 25, 'mail.from.domain') { |smtp| ... }
SMTP Authentication
The Net::SMTP class supports three authentication schemes; PLAIN, LOGIN and CRAM MD5. (SMTP Authentication: [RFC2554]) To use SMTP authentication, pass extra arguments to ::start/SMTP#start.
# PLAIN Net::SMTP.start('your.smtp.server', 25, 'mail.from.domain', 'Your Account', 'Your Password', :plain) # LOGIN Net::SMTP.start('your.smtp.server', 25, 'mail.from.domain', 'Your Account', 'Your Password', :login) # CRAM MD5 Net::SMTP.start('your.smtp.server', 25, 'mail.from.domain', 'Your Account', 'Your Password', :cram_md5)