6 ms·

Ethereal Email – A fake SMTP service

78 points by andris9 9y ago

LinuxBender 9y ago
How is this better than using smtp-sink that comes with postfix?
- andris9 9y ago
  Ethereal allows to generate new testing accounts via an API. Every account is a full featured IMAP/POP3 mail store with the condition that all emails expire after 7 days from the account.
  - LinuxBender 9y ago
    Fair enough. I only ask because email testing should be able to run in an isolated test network. Perhaps dovcot+postfix in a container may be too much work for some folks.
- Xeoncross 9y ago
  It's a great idea, but two quick reasons: - Most of us don't know about it - You have to install postfix
  - saurik 9y ago
    Many fewer of us know about Ethereal Email... just sayin'.
therealidiot 9y ago
I recently learned of MailDev http://danfarrelly.nyc/MailDev/ http://danfarrelly.nyc/MailDev/
Moto7451 9y ago
Funny. Just today I needed a locally hosted version of this and came across: https://mailcatcher.me https://mailcatcher.me So far my experience has been good. I get to work on some email sending code on a wifi-less airplane.
jwcrux 9y ago
I also recommend MailHog[0]. I've had nothing but good experiences with it, and it was dirt simple to install. [0] https://github.com/mailhog/MailHog https://github.com/mailhog/MailHog
- brokenmachine 9y ago
  Dirt simple? You must be dead poor. :-P
Xeoncross 9y ago
I want to know if there are any httperf/seige like tools for email. I would love to blast my server with 100k valid & invalid emails and see how it does.
jordanab 9y ago
We always use MailTrap for our projects. It's a fake SMTP server with a webbased inbox. Nothing to install, you just have to configure some SMTP credentials in your applications. https://mailtrap.io/ https://mailtrap.io/
justboxing 9y ago
Not trolling, but why would any developer need a service like this? Isn't that what Mocking frameworks and Interfaces (Interface driven design) are for? Ex: I would create an interface called IMailService with the operations like Send etc, and once my application is ready, just swap the concrete implementation of the MailService class with the one that talks to the real mail service using Dependency Injection. If it's not for developers, who would use something like this?
- stingraycharles 9y ago
  Sometimes you want to do a higher level integration / end to end test. Consider for example where you’re testing a docker image and need to provide an SMTP endpoint. This could be a solution.
- amigoingtodie 9y ago
  So, I have an application that sends alerts via email and 'sms', and to save costs for some sms messages, I use the cell provider's email address w/ the user's phone number. These alerts can go to a user and/or a user's supervisor(s). Additionally, the content of the message is dynamic. This service would be very easy to add as a config option and let non-technical coworkers test the application for accuracy. Also, I will know that SMTP is actually working. Otherwise, I need to write the code and a UI for the non-technical coworker, and a way to store it. I have other things I need to work on.
  - brazzledazzle 9y ago
    Not sure what you're alerting for so maybe it doesn't matter but I just wanted to warn you about using sms mail gateways. Most of the time the email gateways work (with varying delays) but I've seen every major provider fail or take days to deliver when I needed it the most.
    - amigoingtodie 9y ago
      I know. We use Twilio for the 'important' alerts and the gateways for 'nice to have'. But, as you said, it can be iffy, so that is why I want to know if the issue is with stuff I control, or them. So, at least I know it is being sent and my logic is solid.
misky8 9y ago
There's also Mailinator - Web & API https://www.mailinator.com https://www.mailinator.com
0x0 9y ago
If you are using /usr/sbin/sendmail style delivery, for example via the built-in postfix implementation on macOS and many linux-like systems, it's fairly easy to configure postfix to rewrite absolutely everything to go to your own email address. This can be quite helpful during development, because not only do you get to see the emails as they are delivered, but you can also worry less about sending development emails out to random addresses around the world. (Look into "recipient_canonical_maps")
- korethr 9y ago
  I wonder if perhaps they're not using exactly that on the backend to implement this.
  - andris9 9y ago
    Ethereal.email uses Wild Duck Mail Server as the backend https://github.com/nodemailer/wildduck https://github.com/nodemailer/wildduck In fact this was one of the reasons I created Ethereal - to get some load test against Wld Duck
- rocqua 9y ago
  You need the destination address to not run dkim spf or dmarc on the forwarded emails with rewritten destinations. I came across this when forwarding everything to gmail. Gmail is smart enough to accept this for mail originally destined for an address you enabled as "send from". However, mail sent to e.g. retailName@domain.com will fail the checks and never be delivered.
  - andris9 9y ago
    Gmail is great for an occasional test email but it starts rate limiting pretty fast when trying to send many messages to a single account.
mrjd 9y ago
Also https://letterb.in https://letterb.in which also has an API if it's handy to anyone.
AceyMan 9y ago
My team uses mailcatcher, also, but (partly) for reasons I've not yet seen mentioned: Our primary application allows us to safely import recent dumps of the production databases into select CI systems, of which some tables have user records with real email addresses for report sending, etc. In the case that the code which sanitizes these records misfires or otherwise fails to do its job, at least we won't send random emails to actual customers. I know we've all gotten those from a vendor at one time or another and it's a corporate level face-palm that's worth the extra effort to avoid. Belts & suspenders, defense-in-depth, and all that.
Operyl 9y ago
If the developer is reading: you probably shouldn’t tell your users to click banner ads, if I recall correctly that’s grounds for termination: “8. How is this sustainable Ethereal Email service is funded by the ads displayed on Nodemailer.com. So don't forget to click on these banners!”
DaChangeMaker 9y ago
Papercut does this as well except all self contained in a simple open source desktop app. https://github.com/ChangemakerStudios/Papercut https://github.com/ChangemakerStudios/Papercut
sebazzz 9y ago
I like Papercut better. It runs on your own machine and you can configure forwarding rules in case you want to test e-mail on other clients like Outlook or GMail. The interface is simple and clean.
squiggy22 9y ago
Big fan of https://mailtrap.io https://mailtrap.io

78 points by andris9 9y ago

LinuxBender 9y ago

How is this better than using smtp-sink that comes with postfix?

andris9 9y ago
Ethereal allows to generate new testing accounts via an API. Every account is a full featured IMAP/POP3 mail store with the condition that all emails expire after 7 days from the account.
- LinuxBender 9y ago
  Fair enough. I only ask because email testing should be able to run in an isolated test network. Perhaps dovcot+postfix in a container may be too much work for some folks.
Xeoncross 9y ago
It's a great idea, but two quick reasons: - Most of us don't know about it - You have to install postfix
- saurik 9y ago
  Many fewer of us know about Ethereal Email... just sayin'.

therealidiot 9y ago

I recently learned of MailDev http://danfarrelly.nyc/MailDev/ http://danfarrelly.nyc/MailDev/

Moto7451 9y ago

Funny. Just today I needed a locally hosted version of this and came across: https://mailcatcher.me https://mailcatcher.me So far my experience has been good. I get to work on some email sending code on a wifi-less airplane.

jwcrux 9y ago

I also recommend MailHog[0]. I've had nothing but good experiences with it, and it was dirt simple to install. [0] https://github.com/mailhog/MailHog https://github.com/mailhog/MailHog

brokenmachine 9y ago
Dirt simple? You must be dead poor. :-P

Xeoncross 9y ago

I want to know if there are any httperf/seige like tools for email. I would love to blast my server with 100k valid & invalid emails and see how it does.

jordanab 9y ago

We always use MailTrap for our projects. It's a fake SMTP server with a webbased inbox. Nothing to install, you just have to configure some SMTP credentials in your applications. https://mailtrap.io/ https://mailtrap.io/

justboxing 9y ago

Not trolling, but why would any developer need a service like this? Isn't that what Mocking frameworks and Interfaces (Interface driven design) are for? Ex: I would create an interface called IMailService with the operations like Send etc, and once my application is ready, just swap the concrete implementation of the MailService class with the one that talks to the real mail service using Dependency Injection. If it's not for developers, who would use something like this?

stingraycharles 9y ago
Sometimes you want to do a higher level integration / end to end test. Consider for example where you’re testing a docker image and need to provide an SMTP endpoint. This could be a solution.
amigoingtodie 9y ago
So, I have an application that sends alerts via email and 'sms', and to save costs for some sms messages, I use the cell provider's email address w/ the user's phone number. These alerts can go to a user and/or a user's supervisor(s). Additionally, the content of the message is dynamic. This service would be very easy to add as a config option and let non-technical coworkers test the application for accuracy. Also, I will know that SMTP is actually working. Otherwise, I need to write the code and a UI for the non-technical coworker, and a way to store it. I have other things I need to work on.
- brazzledazzle 9y ago
  Not sure what you're alerting for so maybe it doesn't matter but I just wanted to warn you about using sms mail gateways. Most of the time the email gateways work (with varying delays) but I've seen every major provider fail or take days to deliver when I needed it the most.
  - amigoingtodie 9y ago
    I know. We use Twilio for the 'important' alerts and the gateways for 'nice to have'. But, as you said, it can be iffy, so that is why I want to know if the issue is with stuff I control, or them. So, at least I know it is being sent and my logic is solid.

misky8 9y ago

There's also Mailinator - Web & API https://www.mailinator.com https://www.mailinator.com

0x0 9y ago

If you are using /usr/sbin/sendmail style delivery, for example via the built-in postfix implementation on macOS and many linux-like systems, it's fairly easy to configure postfix to rewrite absolutely everything to go to your own email address. This can be quite helpful during development, because not only do you get to see the emails as they are delivered, but you can also worry less about sending development emails out to random addresses around the world. (Look into "recipient_canonical_maps")

korethr 9y ago
I wonder if perhaps they're not using exactly that on the backend to implement this.
- andris9 9y ago
  Ethereal.email uses Wild Duck Mail Server as the backend https://github.com/nodemailer/wildduck https://github.com/nodemailer/wildduck In fact this was one of the reasons I created Ethereal - to get some load test against Wld Duck
rocqua 9y ago
You need the destination address to not run dkim spf or dmarc on the forwarded emails with rewritten destinations. I came across this when forwarding everything to gmail. Gmail is smart enough to accept this for mail originally destined for an address you enabled as "send from". However, mail sent to e.g. retailName@domain.com will fail the checks and never be delivered.
- andris9 9y ago
  Gmail is great for an occasional test email but it starts rate limiting pretty fast when trying to send many messages to a single account.

mrjd 9y ago

Also https://letterb.in https://letterb.in which also has an API if it's handy to anyone.

AceyMan 9y ago

My team uses mailcatcher, also, but (partly) for reasons I've not yet seen mentioned: Our primary application allows us to safely import recent dumps of the production databases into select CI systems, of which some tables have user records with real email addresses for report sending, etc. In the case that the code which sanitizes these records misfires or otherwise fails to do its job, at least we won't send random emails to actual customers. I know we've all gotten those from a vendor at one time or another and it's a corporate level face-palm that's worth the extra effort to avoid. Belts & suspenders, defense-in-depth, and all that.

Operyl 9y ago

If the developer is reading: you probably shouldn’t tell your users to click banner ads, if I recall correctly that’s grounds for termination: “8. How is this sustainable Ethereal Email service is funded by the ads displayed on Nodemailer.com. So don't forget to click on these banners!”

DaChangeMaker 9y ago

Papercut does this as well except all self contained in a simple open source desktop app. https://github.com/ChangemakerStudios/Papercut https://github.com/ChangemakerStudios/Papercut

sebazzz 9y ago

I like Papercut better. It runs on your own machine and you can configure forwarding rules in case you want to test e-mail on other clients like Outlook or GMail. The interface is simple and clean.

squiggy22 9y ago

Big fan of https://mailtrap.io https://mailtrap.io