If you want to use a Gmail account as a free SMTP server on your Ubuntu-Linux server, you will find this article useful. This guide is tested with Ubuntu 12.04. If you face any issue, feel free to use comments-section below.

Relaying Postfix mails via smtp.gmail.com:

First, install all necessary packages:


			sudo apt-get install postfix mailutils libsasl2-2 ca-certificates libsasl2-modules

If you do not have postfix installed before, postfix configuration wizard will ask you some questions. Just select your server as Internet Site and for FQDN use something like mail.example.com

Then open your postfix config file:


			vim /etc/postfix/main.cf

and following lines to it:


			relayhost = [smtp.gmail.com]:587
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/postfix/cacert.pem
smtp_use_tls = yes

You might have noticed that we haven’t specified our Gmail username and password in above lines. They will go into a different file. Open/Create


			vim /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd

And add following line:


			[smtp.gmail.com]:587    USERNAME@gmail.com:PASSWORD

If you want to use your Google App’s domain, please replace @gmail.com with your @domain.com

Fix permission and update postfix config to use sasl_passwd file:


			sudo chmod 400 /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
sudo postmap /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd

Next, validate certificates to avoid running into error. Just run following command:


			cat /etc/ssl/certs/Thawte_Premium_Server_CA.pem | sudo tee -a /etc/postfix/cacert.pem

Note: If you run into issues with above command, try changing certificate name to thawte_Primary_Root_CA.pem in above command. Thanks Alexander Bakker for the note.

Finally, reload postfix config for changes to take effect:


			sudo /etc/init.d/postfix reload

Testing

Check if mails are sent via Gmail SMTP server

If you have configured everything correctly, following command should generate a test mail from your server to your mailbox.


			echo "Test mail from postfix" | mail -s "Test Postfix" you@example.com

To further verify, if mail sent from above command is actually sent via Gmail’s SMTP server, you can log into Gmail account USERNAME@gmail.com with PASSWORD and check “Sent Mail” folder in that Gmail account. By default, Gmail always keeps a copy of mail being sent through its web-interface as well as SMTP server. This logging is one strong reason that we often use Gmail when mail delivery is critical.

Once configured, all emails from your server will be sent via Gmail. This method will be useful if you have many sites on your server and want them all to send emails via Gmail’s SMTP server.

Alternatively, you can use a plugin like WP Mail SMTP so that mails from your particular WordPress site will be sent using Gmail’s SMTP server.

Please note that Gmail’s SMTP server has a limit of 500 emails per day. So use wisely! 🙂

Troubleshooting

Error: “SASL authentication failed; server smtp.gmail.com”

You need to unlock the captcha by visiting this page https://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha

You can run test again after unlocking captcha.

P.S. Do not miss out on our other helpful tutorials. Join us on twitter and facebook for more updates.

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Comments

elricho

February 26, 2013

Excelent tutorial it work very well !!! Thank you so much.
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  February 26, 2013
  
  Glad to know that you find it useful. 🙂
2. Pundlik
  
  December 5, 2013
  
  This is not work properly in my UBUNTu 12.04
  Can u help me…..
  1. Rahul Bansal
    
    December 6, 2013
    
    For help, please check http://rtcamp.com/tutorials/mail/postfix-debugging/ first.
    
    If you notice anything in postfix logs, you can create a support request in our free forums – https://rtcamp.com/support/forum/wordpress-nginx/
Mark

March 22, 2013

A great big thank you to you this worked brilliantly on my Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS install
birdpunisher

April 1, 2013

I felt the need to say thank you since you were a big help – straightforward explanation that worked after the first try 🙂
Zeeshan

April 22, 2013

Excellent.. Thanks for saving time.
kasun

May 2, 2013

Man ! I owe you big time 😀 thanks heaps , This is a lot simple and understandabale than any other thing I’ve found , It actually works ! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK ! CHEERS !!!
Chris Walsh

May 9, 2013

This was fantastically useful; thanks for taking the time to write it up.
ayad

May 21, 2013

Excellent..thanks
1. momo
  
  May 23, 2013
  
  It is excellent.
Ricardo

May 25, 2013

After configured everything and download the root cert from Thawte I am receiving the following error. Could you please help me?

Action: failed
Status: 5.7.0
Remote-MTA: dns; smtp.gmail.com
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 530 5.7.0 Must issue a STARTTLS command first.
f71sm25739776yha.8 – gsmtp
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  June 2, 2013
  
  It looks related to postfix main.cf file.
  
  Check settings in `/etc/postfix/main.cf`. Have you modified any setting?
2. JEsus
  
  September 13, 2013
  
  USE THIS in the main.cf
  
  eliminates default security options which are imcompatible with gmail
  
  smtp_sasl_security_options =
  1. Jens Skov
    
    January 31, 2014
    
    I also have this problem.
    
    I can’t spot the error.. Any suggestions?
    
    My main.cf looks like:
    
    myhostname = raspberrypi alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases alias_database = hash:/etc/aliases myorigin = /etc/mailname mydestination = raspberrypi, localhost.localdomain, localhost relayhost = [smtp.gmail.com]:587 mynetworks = 127.0.0.0/8 mailbox_size_limit = 0 recipient_delimiter = + inet_interfaces = all inet_protocols = ipv4
    
    smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP $mail_name (Debian/GNU) biff = no # appending .domain is the MUA's job. append_dot_mydomain = no # Uncomment the next line to generate "delayed mail" warnings #delay_warning_time = 4h readme_directory = no # TLS parameters smtpd_tls_cert_file=/etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem smtpd_tls_key_file=/etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key smtpd_use_tls=yes smtpd_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtpd_scache smtp_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtp_scache # use sasl when authenticating to foreign SMTP servers smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes # path to password map file smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd # list of CAs to trust when verifying server certificate smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
    
    # eliminates default security options which are imcompatible with gmail smtp_sasl_security_options =
    1. Jens Skov
      
      January 31, 2014
      
      Ah, I found the answer here:
      http://askubuntu.com/questions/228938/how-can-i-configure-postfix-to-send-all-email-through-my-gmail-account
Bastian

May 26, 2013

Anyone else facing an ‘Authenication Required’ error message when sticking to the tutorial (although setting up the password file worked flawlessly)?
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  June 2, 2013
  
  @Bastian
  
  Do you have 2-factor authentication enabled for your Gmail? You may need to use application specific password.
  1. Bastian
    
    June 2, 2013
    
    @Rahul
    
    Never mind. I solved the problem by fixing the typos that I had previously added to the password and configuration files (by accident) :-).
    1. Rahul Bansal
      
      June 2, 2013
      
      Glad to know that. Thanks for updating. 🙂
Ed

May 29, 2013

Worked Perfectly! Thanks!
Omar

June 24, 2013

AWESOME! THANKS!
Kinshuk Tyagi

June 28, 2013

Thanks it worked!
Yuri Sklar

June 30, 2013

Thanks a lot!
kk

July 6, 2013

worked great….
didnot work

July 9, 2013

XXXx@XXXXXX:/etc/postfix$ echo “Test mail from postfix” | mail -s “Test Postfix” XXXXX@XXX.com
The program ‘mail’ is currently not installed. To run ‘mail’ please ask your administrator to install the package ‘mailutils’
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  July 9, 2013
  
  You need to install mailutils package.
Rafael

July 9, 2013

It is not the first tutorial that i tried, but it is the first that worked on my Ubuntu 12.04.
It is excellent. Thank you very much
rossdavidh

July 13, 2013

Worked great! However, in my case I had to do one more thing which I thought I’d share here. After sending the test email, I got a “Suspicious sign-in prevented” email from google in my inbox. So, I went to google.com to search for a solution, saw a big red banner saying something like “someone tried to login to your email from a new application, was it you?” I clicked through several screens to say “yes, this was me”.

echo “Test mail from postfix” | mail -s “Test Postfix” me@mydomain.com

…and this time got test email in gmail account!

Just sharing this in case someone else gets this.
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  July 13, 2013
  
  Thanks for sharing your experience. Might help somebody.
  
  Once accessing Gmail via IMAP, I got message on my terminal asking me to complete CAPTCHA from browser by opening link – https://accounts.google.com/UnlockCaptcha
  
  Google might have more security checks like these in-place!
  1. Gregory
    
    February 18, 2014
    
    Oh my goodness!… I tried everything and couldn’t get SASL Authentication working. I knew I was close. Google even warned me of the “Suspicious Activity” which I confirmed, but then I saw the link you posted:
    
    https://accounts.google.com/UnlockCaptcha
    
    Boom!… it worked.
krishna

July 16, 2013

very nice smtp relay worked like charm.thanks dude.
Vamsi Ampolu

July 17, 2013

When executing the following command:

postfix/postfix-script: fatal: the Postfix mail system is not running
[fail]
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  October 14, 2013
  
  Which command you tried executing?
  
  Sorry but looks like your command got stripped during comment submission.
Vamsi Ampolu

July 17, 2013

sudo /etc/init.d/postfix reload
* Reloading Postfix configuration… postfix/postfix-script: fatal: the Postfix mail system is not running
[fail]
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  July 18, 2013
  
  Just try… `sudo /etc/init.d/postfix restart`
  
  If you get error `bind 0.0.0.0 port 25: Address already in use` then it might be the case some other mail program is already present in your system.
subin

July 28, 2013

Hi,
I configured postfix as above, but unfortunately send mail root through root@ not from gmail , and no email at send mail of gmail a/c, I double checked all config exactly as per this doc, Can you please help me , Is their any additional configuration I need set up?

-Subin
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  August 14, 2013
  
  If gmail is configured correctly, FROM address will be overridden with Gmail’s email address for all outgoing email.
  
  It looks like your emails aren’t sent by Gmail. Hence they are not appearing in Gmail’s sent mail folder as well.
  1. Herm
    
    September 11, 2013
    
    Hi subin
    
    Did you get a resolution to your issue? I’m facing the same. The FROM address is not being overridden. So it is trying to send from “linuxuser”@gmail.com instead of “gmailname”@gmail.com
    1. Rahul Bansal
      
      October 14, 2013
      
      This is really strange as Gmail makes sure that we can not override FROM name on the go.
      
      In fact, that is one reason to NOT use Gmail in many production server where system need to send emails from multiple FROM addresses.
Scor

July 30, 2013

Great guide, could set up relaying in 5 minutes. 🙂 Thanks!
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  August 14, 2013
  
  Glad to know that. 🙂
Matache

August 8, 2013

I have a problem, everything worked without a problem , no errors no nothing, but when i check my gmail account nothing was sent? What do you think the problem might be?
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  August 8, 2013
  
  Please check http://rtcamp.com/wordpress-nginx/tutorials/postfix/debugging/
  
  You may find some details in postfix logs.
  
  Also – did receiver receive test email?
  1. Matache Mihai
    
    August 15, 2013
    
    Thanks for the promp response and sorry for the late comeback, but I found out that at the place where i was trying to set this up smtp is a no no, it has been disabled on the network for security reasons.
    1. Rahul Bansal
      
      August 16, 2013
      
      That’s something strange! Outbound mail disabled for security reason. 😐
      1. Matache Mihai
        
        August 16, 2013
        
        Not all outbound mail. 99% of the users use windows and have outlook configured through the company servers. I’m the oddball there because i’m trying to get a backup application running on a linux pc for some of the older computers that can’t be replaced for some reason or another, and when i say old i mean going on 20 years, they’re practicaly the legal drinking age. I was trying to configure email client on that. Thanks for all the help.
anirudha rath

August 14, 2013

after configuring postfix as above I cann’t receive any mail from the server to my mail id
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  August 14, 2013
  
  Please check http://rtcamp.com/wordpress-nginx/tutorials/postfix/debugging/
  
  If you not getting anything it may be because postfix is not running.
Subin

August 16, 2013

Hi Rahul, Its a great post, helpful for me, The issue I posted earlier is resolved, By default sendmail also installed and sending mail through sendmail, I removed sendmail, now everything is as expected. Thank you somuch

-Subin
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  August 26, 2013
  
  Glad to know your problems fixed. 🙂
krishna

August 22, 2013

I have strange problem please help me

it was all working fine,

now i cannot send email to gmail.com,yahoo.co.in,

but i can send to hotmail and google hosted email service,rediffpro account.

i cant understand what is this problem please help….
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  August 26, 2013
  
  Look for postfix logs and also Gmail’s sent folder for email address being used.
  
  On other end, check spam folder on email accounts where you are not receiving mails.
Chris Brown

September 12, 2013

Thank you! This article just saved me a loooong weekend of work.
Praveen

September 20, 2013

a Big thanks for the point shoot instructions. It worked pretty well. Now I will try to configure my other domain SMTP here (you showed it how 🙂 )….
Mike

September 20, 2013

Just wanted to extend my thanks to you for this succinct write-up. I have setup mail on Ubuntu servers before, but this was my first time attempting SMTP via Postfix, and this was a very simple and quick mail setup that just works.

Nicely done!
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  September 23, 2013
  
  Thanks for really encouraging comment 🙂
Ubuntu User

September 20, 2013

Thank you. Works for me. Also liked the simple instructions.
postfix-r

September 22, 2013

Works Great!! thanks a lot for the well documented steps.

Found “aptitude” command does’t work on Ubuntu 13.04 ( 13.04, Raring Ringtail ) ,
– Used insted “apt-get ”

sudo aptitude install postfix mailutils libsasl2-2 ca-certificates libsasl2-modules

WORKS great!, Thank you.
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  September 23, 2013
  
  I prefer apt-get only. Updated article so I won’t run into issues on Ubuntu 13.04
  
  Thanks for your feedback.
RavanH

September 29, 2013

Why not switch to msmtp instead of postfix if you’re only going to use it for sending through gmail? I’ve not compared/tested but I think its memory footprint is much smaller… While setup is similar 🙂
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  October 14, 2013
  
  I haven’t used msmtp before. I am using postfix from 2008 (when I started getting into this stuff).
  
  I only look for alternative when I am not happy with current packages. Plus I need postfix for typical mail-hosting servers and elsewhere.
  
  If you try msmtp and find it good, please share your findings. I am always up for simplicity as long as it doesn’t compromise functionality.
  1. RavanH
    
    October 15, 2013
    
    One very short tutorial here http://www.absolutelytech.com/2010/07/17/howto-configure-msmtp-to-work-with-gmail-on-linux/ (for Ubuntu Desktop so replace gedit with nano or vim or any other CL editor of preference) 🙂
suraj

October 5, 2013

postdrop: warning: unable to look up public/pickup: No such file or directory
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  October 14, 2013
  
  Looks like you have sendmail installed as per this guide.
alex.fliker

October 7, 2013

Thank you so much!
Aanu

November 3, 2013

Hey man,
You’re really the best… I’ve been on this for over a week but U did it in less than 30 minutes!!! Thanks a million. I hope I will be able to send with attachments too!!!
Thany you so much… You deserve the best
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  November 5, 2013
  
  Thanks aanu for your appreciation.
Alex Lydiate

November 7, 2013

Beautiful! You’re a hero of modern times, my friend, what a superb tutorial. I shall now send emails from the command line alone, simply because I can 🙂
André Kjellstrup

November 8, 2013

Thank you.
Unfortunately I get this:
Nov 8 12:27:41 ODIN2 postfix/error[20109]: EDB1E77006EE: to=, orig_to=, relay=none, delay=0, delays=0/0/0/0, dsn=5.0.0, status=bounced ([smtp.gmail.com]:587)

I have ssmtp on my server, but cron did not like to use it. I assume it’s not the cause of this problem.
also: I use 2-factor auth, but I gave it an application-specific password. – and it does not seem to be an authentication problem.
Please help me. 🙂
1. André K.
  
  November 8, 2013
  
  Also, I did not get a wizard, you mention that I should configure as “internet site”.
  I changed
  myhostname ODIN2.example.com
  
  now the error is still the same, except for the destination address being all wrong
  Nov 8 12:54:12 ODIN2 postfix/error[25061]: 871077700701: to=, relay=none, delay=0, delays=0/0/0/0, dsn=5.0.0, status=bounced (odin2.example.com)
  
  ow can I do this” select Internet Site and for FQDN use something like mail.example.com”
  1. Rahul Bansal
    
    November 11, 2013
    
    Please use support forum – https://rtcamp.com/support/forum/wordpress-nginx/
    
    Attach output of “postconf -n” command and your error log.
    1. André K.
      
      November 12, 2013
      
      Purged ssmtp, and postfix, then reinstalled postfix , instant success.
      Thank you.
Tamara

November 11, 2013

Hi Rahul,

This tutorial has been very helpful many times. However, I am stuck with a couple of clients using Zoho (at my recommendation as it is free-er)

Do you have any experience setting up postfix with Zoho? If you do, would you be willing to write another lovely tutorial?
The internet has failed me and I was not able to find anything but the following:
https://forums.zoho.com/topic/setup-postfix

Thanks for your time,
Tamara
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  November 11, 2013
  
  I never used Zoho mail. But if they are providing SMTP interface then you can just substitute values for Zoho SMTP in place of Gmail SMTP to get it working.
  
  All this tutorial does in relay outgoing emails via Gmail’s SMTP server rather than local sendmail program.
  1. Tamara
    
    November 11, 2013
    
    Thank you for the prompt response!
    
    Zoho uses an SSL connection rather than TLS. I’ve started playing with the config outlined at the following article http://major.io/2007/07/01/enable-ssl-support-in-postfix/, but got stuck on how to add the username and password.
    
    Would you know if I’d still be able to use the following for storing the username and pass
    
    smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
    smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
    smtp_sasl_security_options = no anonymous
    
    Thanks again 😀
    1. Rahul Bansal
      
      November 11, 2013
      
      Those settings comes into picture when “your postfix server” is used by other applications. In this case, you are using “zoho server” so I don’t think your postfix’s master conf will matter much.
      
      Try replacing [smtp.gmail.com]:587 with [smtp.zoho.com]:465 evrywhere in this article.
      1. Wei Fang
        
        December 13, 2013
        
        Replacing with [smtp.zoho.com]:465 in main.cf unfortunately doesn’t help, since Postfix doesn’t support legacy TLS. I happened to get Postfix work with Zoho email while setting up gitlab. Details are here. Details Link.
ayush

November 14, 2013

thank you sir…
YoTsumi

November 14, 2013

Works perfect 🙂 Thank !
pkinjo

November 15, 2013

After issuing command:
sudo chmod 400 /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd

Come with this issue:
sudo: unable to resolve host mail

Masters, need some help please. Thanks a lot.
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  November 16, 2013
  
  Can you check postfix logs for more detailed error messages?
  
  Try – http://rtcamp.com/tutorials/mail/postfix-debugging/
George

November 16, 2013

Thank you. It’s pity I didn’t find this article earlier…
Mohammed Awwal

November 17, 2013

works like a freaking charm…… whoever did this tutorial he freaking rock….thanks wherever you are
Ian C

November 23, 2013

Thank you very much for this excellent tutorial. It works fine on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS but not on 13.10
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  November 24, 2013
  
  We only use LTS releases for Ubuntu.
  
  However, if you manage to get this working on Ubuntu 13.10, feel free to suggest changes and I will have this post updated with your contribution.
B.k.Jayasundera

November 26, 2013

Thank you Rahul
erikb85

November 28, 2013

And how to debug if the testrun fails? As far as I can tell it doesn’t even say any error messages or warnings.
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  November 28, 2013
  
  Check postfix error log.
  
  This might help you – http://rtcamp.com/tutorials/mail/postfix-debugging/
Paula

December 7, 2013

Worked! Thanks.
Raja

December 18, 2013

Dear, excellent posting, followed step by step and working like a charm.
All the best! Regards raja
angels1100

December 19, 2013

Dec 19 12:11:42 user-System-Product-Name postfix/smtp[20581]: B3DA31A421D2: SASL authentication failed; server smtp.gmail.com[74.125.143.109] said: 535-5.7.8 Username and Password not accepted. Learn more at?535 5.7.8 http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?answer=14257 y11sm1790904lbm.13 – gsmtp
Dec 19 12:11:43 user-System-Product-Name postfix/smtp[20581]: B3DA31A421D2: SASL authentication failed; server smtp.gmail.com[74.125.143.108] said: 535-5.7.8 Username and Password not accepted. Learn more at?535 5.7.8 http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?answer=14257 mq10sm1794674lbb.12 – gsmtp
Dec 19 12:11:43 user-System-Product-Name postfix/smtp[20581]: connect to smtp.gmail.com[2a00:1450:4008:c01::6d]:587: Network is unreachable
Dec 19 12:11:43 user-System-Product-Name postfix/smtp[20581]: B3DA31A421D2: to=, relay=none, delay=2.2, delays=0.08/0/2.2/0, dsn=4.4.1, status=deferred (connect to smtp.gmail.com[2a00:1450:4008:c01::6d]:587: Network is unreachable)
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  December 20, 2013
  
  Look slike your server couldn’t talk to smtp.gmail.com.
  
  Try checking network connectivity issue.
Ping

December 26, 2013

Worked on Ubuntu 12.04
Thank you a lot! I spent like 4 days with sendmail, postfix, dns server set up. So fed up with all these tech challenges. Finally reinstall Ubunut and you post saved me!
Asdrubal Velasquez

December 30, 2013

Worked!! (tested on Lubuntu 13.10)
Best regards
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  December 30, 2013
  
  Thanks for confirming. 🙂
Dennis van den Berg

January 5, 2014

Great instructions, thanks!
Enis

January 7, 2014

Great tutorial, thank you!
reena

January 8, 2014

Hi, thanks for your guide. I got it to work for outgoing emails from root@localhost. What must i do to get it to work for incoming emails sent to gmail? I tried searching on the internet but came up with nothing :(. Hopefully you have a solution for me.
reena

January 8, 2014

sorry there is a typo above, i mean incoming emails sent to root. not gmail. thanks again!
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  January 8, 2014
  
  Sorry I couldn’t understood your problem clearly. This article deals with outgoing mails only.
  
  Your server cannot receive incoming emails for root@localhost from outside world. Incoming mail is whole different topic.
  
  If you are concerned about “replies” to mails going through Gmail; those “replies” will be directly reach to Gmail server.
Darren

January 15, 2014

Fantastic tutorial but I’m falling at the first hurdle;-
Reading packages lists…Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Package mailutils is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source
E: Package ‘mailutils’ has no installation candidate
E: Unable to locate package libsas12-2
E: Unable to locate package libsas12-modules
1. Darren
  
  January 15, 2014
  
  Sorry folks, I hadn’t configured the network properly.
  1. Rahul Bansal
    
    January 15, 2014
    
    Glad to know you manage to solve your issue yourself. 🙂
    1. Darren
      
      January 16, 2014
      
      This is a fantastic tutorial!!!!
anonymous

January 16, 2014

I did what you said but when i check Sentmail, the mail is not there…the resident also did not recieve any mail.pls help.i m using uunty 12.04 lts.Thank you.
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  January 16, 2014
  
  Did u try – https://rtcamp.com/tutorials/mail/postfix-debugging/ ?
anonymous

January 17, 2014

i m getting mail in mailbox but no mail in sent mail in my gmail account.my host name is my computer name without domain and i m not able to change it by editing /etc/hostname.
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  January 17, 2014
  
  This means mails are sent via localhost and not gmail.
  
  Try this – https://rtcamp.com/tutorials/mail/fqdn-reverse-dns-ptr-mx-record-checks/
  1. anonymous
    
    January 17, 2014
    
    changed my host name by editing /etc/hostname and /etc/hosts but now host myfqdn is not working and giving 3(NXDomain) error.Still the mail is sent via my fqdn and not gmail.
    1. Rahul Bansal
      
      January 18, 2014
      
      Did you follow instructions in above article? Hostname doesn’t play much role in relaying outgoing mails via Gmail.
  2. anonymous
    
    January 18, 2014
    
    Reverse Dns not working in my fqdn.its giving 3(NXDomain)error.i enabled smtp my gmail account whose details i saved in/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd so whenever i send to any other gmail account via command prom then its working but if i send it to username@myfqdn then its not sent via gmail accnt .i m not able to send any mail to my fqdn.for example if fqdn is myhost.mail.com then i can send mail to username@myhost.mail.com but not to myhost.mail.com.when i try to send mail to myhost.mail.com then it gives failure report in my gmail account…if my hostname is myhost and fqdn is myhost.mail.com then sending mail to abc@mail.com is giving failure report but abc@myhost.mail.com is sending mail bt not via gmail.
    1. Rahul Bansal
      
      January 22, 2014
      
      I think you are having problem for sending to only one particular domains – your FQDN in this case.
      
      Check postfix value for mydestination setting. If its anything apart from localhost, or contains your FQDN, then remove that value from there.
Pritam

January 20, 2014

Thank you Rahul. It worked like charm. Your article saved a lot of time for me.
anonymous

January 21, 2014

Is there any way of sending email from gmail to my domain??
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  January 22, 2014
  
  Not sure what are you asking for? All mails will be through Gmail account’s email address. You can use an email address with Google Apps mail.
néo

January 22, 2014

Hello sir, thank you for your great tutorials, i know this is not the right place for this but unfortunely im a windows user with xampp server, i configured my php.ini and my sendmail.ini for gmail smtp, my php mail sender script says mail successfully sent, but i dont recive any thing, i tried all possible sollutions on internet but still got this problem! so maybe you cn helep me 🙁 PLEAZEEE!
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  January 22, 2014
  
  Sorry. Haven’t touched a Windows machine in last 5 years so can’t help with that!
Piers Harding

January 22, 2014

Brilliant!
Jim Volf

January 27, 2014

Awesome. Worked great. Thank you very much!
Raseel Bhagat

January 27, 2014

Thanks a lot Rahul for such a precise, concise post. It served me really well and saved up a LOT of time to do a quick mail test.
Trisha

January 30, 2014

Thank you for this tutorial! I got my gmail smtp on postfix to work, Quick question which I really pray u have an answer for it! How do I configure fail2ban for postfix if I followed your tutorial? thank you!!!
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  February 3, 2014
  
  How do I configure fail2ban for postfix if I followed your tutorial?
  
  The same way you would have configured when not using Gmail as reply in postfix. I guess fail2ban comes into picture if you are running a public SMTP server. In this case, it is assumed that postfix is not accessible to the outside world via SMTP.
  
  Gmail accounts has very low sending limits. So we use this kind of setup only in small apps for notification email types only.
Ghost

February 1, 2014

Awesome, awesome, awesome! Thanx a lot for this, works like a charm 🙂
Aka Chilala

February 2, 2014

Much appreciated, Rahul. This worked perfectly.
Robert Reid

February 3, 2014

Thank you!
tanvir.raihn

February 3, 2014

Many , thanks.. its working and u awesome 🙂
lizhi

February 4, 2014

my postfix can send an e-mail ,but the sender is wrong. My configuration is pool@ftc-c.com, but that e-mail is from=www-data@pool.ftc-c.com.

postfix/qmgr[22022]: 1225BA0CF5: from=www-data@pool.ftc-c.com, size=1030, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
how do I change the ‘from’?
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  February 5, 2014
  
  Looks like pool.ftc-c.com is your hostname and mails are sent from postfix only. Are you sure you have configured Gmail setup properly?
  
  Because all mails replayed from Gmail uses Gmail’s email address as FROM address.
sayantani Saha

February 6, 2014

Hi, I follow your instruction to send mail via gmail using postfix. However, my network is working behind proxy with userid and password. Will you help me setting up these parameters so that I also feel happy to send mail using this way.
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  February 6, 2014
  
  Sorry. I never configured anything like that. Most likely you need to do this outside postfix. Not sure though.
vins069

February 7, 2014

very good, simple and efficient, thanks so much
Ranjit

February 10, 2014

Thank you….clear and concise instructions…..worked in first attempt.!!
BuzB

February 17, 2014

Excellent instructions, thank you!
Rafael

February 19, 2014

Excellent article. Thank you by to share your knowledge.
Hugs!
Randy

February 22, 2014

Thank you very much, this tutorial was spot on, and very easy to follow. And as an added bonus it worked like a peach! You Rock, Rahul, thanks.
Joe

February 26, 2014

when I am at work where we have a domain it works fine, when I am at home it complains about fqdn and won’t send, what can I do to make it work at home where I don’t have a domain?
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  February 26, 2014
  
  Postfix via Gmail shouldn’t care about domain or IP. This is used mostly in locations where server/machine IP is dynamic.
  
  I am assuming that you have a postfix+gmail setup on your laptop which is you are using at home/work.
  
  When at work try ping yourdomain.name. Repeat same commands at home. If there is a difference in IP, try to offset that difference by modifying local /etc/hosts.
  
  Another case, is postfix+gmail setup is present at work machine but postfix has smtpd_recipient_restrictions enabled with setting reject_non_fqdn_sender. Remove reject_non_fqdn_sender so your (senders) IP/FQDN will not be verified.
  
  References: http://www.postfix.org/postconf.5.html#smtpd_sender_restrictions and http://www.akadia.com/services/postfix_uce.html
Daniel Clarks

February 27, 2014

Work’d for me, tanks
si

February 27, 2014

brilliant！！！
Daniel Stoian

February 28, 2014

Your tutorial worked very well on Debian 7 (Wheezy).<br/>
Clear steps that anyone can understand.<br/>
Thank you very much!
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  February 28, 2014
  
  Glad to know this. 🙂
  
  Never tested this before on Debian.
Umesh Kumar

March 4, 2014

Thanks for the Plugin suggestion, I couldn’t make relay setup working being in hurry but the Plugin WP Mail SMTP works great for me.
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  March 7, 2014
  
  Where did you get stuck? WP Mail SMTP plugin might slow down few WordPress feature as SMTP connections are generally blocking in nature.
  
  Using relay host is useful as postfix uses mail queue.
daniel_mullins

March 10, 2014

This is a great tutorial! Followed step by step and was able to get it working. Had some issue with sendmail already running on port 25, but I removed it and rebooted and now it works like a champ!
Jorge Saldivar

March 10, 2014

After several trials getting this error message “SASL authentication failed; server smtp.gmail.com” I could finally manage by unlocking the captcha visiting this page https://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  March 14, 2014
  
  Yep. Already covered it here: https://rtcamp.com/tutorials/linux/ubuntu-postfix-gmail-smtp/#comment-52591
  
  I will add this to main article so it can be easily found.
Christopher S Wells

March 13, 2014

Every time i boot my server, I get that test mail… x2 and every now and again while its up… how to fix. thanks
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  March 14, 2014
  
  This is not related to this article. This article doesn’t have test mail sending on boot.
  
  Anyway, check crontab. It looks like cronjob.
john

March 16, 2014

hi. really nice tutorial. i got it working simply by following this tutorial.
when i send emails, the recipient sees root (as name, the email address appears correctly).
it appears as root is there a way to change the root to another name.
when i send from my thunderbird using this email address it appears the name i have setup.
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  March 19, 2014
  
  Can you verify if sent mails are appearing in Gmail’s “Sent” folder/label?
  1. john
    
    March 20, 2014
    
    yes, the messages appear in sent folder of gmail
    1. Rahul Bansal
      
      March 22, 2014
      
      I think next thing to do is specify FROM: header while sending mail. Not sure if it will work.
pergaet

March 16, 2014

I get the following log message from gmail: “….The IP you’re using to send mail is not authorized to 550-5.7.1 send email directly to our servers. Please use the SMTP relay at your 550-5.7.1 service provider instead…. ”
Could you suggest a workaround?
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  March 19, 2014
  
  Looks like your mails are not sent via Gmail SMTP. Verify it first.
Orlando Combita

March 22, 2014

Nice and Clear! Thanks a lot Rahul!. I’m on my way to develop a testing server for a php app! Your artice was very helpful
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  March 22, 2014
  
  Glad to know that. 🙂
Tom

March 22, 2014

Clear and working!
thanks a lot!
Sohail

March 24, 2014

Thanks @Rahul,
I have one issue though, if you could help.

I have installed it as you explained it here step by step for my WordPress site. I use Contact Form7 plugin for creating my forms. So I am able to send emails, but the Sender address in all those emails is what I have entered in sasl_passwd file. And it ignores the Sendaddress in the ContactFrom7 plugin. Is there a solution for this ?
1. Rahul Bansal
  
  March 24, 2014
  
  You can login to Gmail, add add other email addresses to your account. See: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/22370?hl=en
  
  It might work!
That Jack Elliott

March 25, 2014

Rahul: It didn’t work perfectly initially. But commenter’s followup questions echoed my issues. The machine said “bind 0.0.0.0 port 25: Address already in use. ” You suggested that this might be due to “some other mail program is already present in your system.” I did “apt-get –purge remive sendmail” to get rid of my best guess, but apparently sendmail it had its claws sunk deep into the OS: I continued to get errors when I did your example test.

But one reboot and Hey Presto! it sends mail!

Many thanks, Rahul! It works good. Thank you for writing up this very handy how-to.

One wonders how you figured it out?