Synnefo

Email delivery configuration

----------------------------

Many of the ``astakos`` operations require server to notify service users and 

administrators via email. e.g. right after the signup process the service sents 

an email to the registered email address containing an email verification url, 

after the user verifies the email address astakos once again needs to notify 

administrators with a notice that a new account has just been verified.

More specifically astakos sends emails in the following cases

- An email containing a verification link after each signup process.

- An email to the people listed in ``ADMINS`` setting after each email 

  verification if ``ASTAKOS_MODERATION`` setting is ``True``. The email 

  notifies administrators that an additional action is required in order to 

  activate the user.

- A welcome email to the user email and an admin notification to ``ADMINS`` 

  right after each account activation.

- Feedback messages submited from astakos contact view and astakos feedback 

  API endpoint are sent to contacts listed in ``HELPDESK`` setting.

- Project application request notifications to people included in ``HELPDESK`` 

  and ``MANAGERS`` settings.

- Notifications after each project members action (join request, membership 

  accepted/declinde etc.) to project members or project owners.

Astakos uses the Django internal email delivering mechanism to send email 

notifications. A simple configuration, using an external smtp server to 

deliver messages, is shown below. 

.. code-block:: python

    # /etc/synnefo/10-snf-common-admins.conf

    EMAIL_HOST = "mysmtp.server.synnefo.org"

    EMAIL_HOST_USER = "<smtpuser>"

    EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = "<smtppassword>"

    # this gets appended in all email subjects

    EMAIL_SUBJECT_PREFIX = "[example.synnefo.org] "

    # Address to use for outgoing emails

    DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = "server@example.synnefo.org"

    # Email where users can contact for support. This is used in html/email 

    # templates.

    CONTACT_EMAIL = "server@example.synnefo.org"

    # The email address that error messages come from

    SERVER_EMAIL = "server-errors@example.synnefo.org"

Notice that since email settings might be required by applications other than

astakos they are defined in a different configuration file than the one

previously used to set astakos specific settings. 

Refer to 

`Django documentation <https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.2/topics/email/>`_

for additional information on available email settings.

As refered in the previous section, based on the operation that triggers 

an email notification, the recipients list differs. Specifically for 

emails whose recipients include contacts from your service team 

(administrators, managers, helpdesk etc) synnefo provides the following 

settings located in ``10-snf-common-admins.conf``:

.. code-block:: python

    ADMINS = (('Admin name', 'admin@example.synnefo.org'), 

              ('Admin2 name', 'admin2@example.synnefo.org))

    MANAGERS = (('Manager name', 'manager@example.synnefo.org'),)

    HELPDESK = (('Helpdesk user name', 'helpdesk@example.synnefo.org'),)