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matrix-email-bot

A bot that posts messages to rooms when an email is received. Ideal for uses where a short message is desired in a chat room when a newsletter goes out.

Questions? Ask away in #email:t2bot.io

How to use (t2bot.io hosted version)

Note: Currently this is in the early stages of development and is therefore somewhat restricted in what is possible. Future enhancements are planned to make this easier to use and set up.

  1. Invite @email:t2bot.io to your Matrix room.
  2. Get your room's internal ID (for instance, !wpcRmAaQXqgBPdUNWo:t2l.io which is #email:t2bot.io).
  3. Contact @travis:t2l.io (via DM) to set the appropriate allow_from rule for your room. (This is a temporary step until #1 is implemented)
  4. Send an email to <room id without !>_<domain>@email.t2bot.io (eg: [email protected]).
  5. See the message the bot posts (this may take a while depending on system load).

Subscribing to mailing lists

Please reach out to @travis:t2l.io (via DM) to get your room mapped to a mailing list. In the future, this will be better and require less involvement from humans.

Run your own

Note: Some experience with MX records is ideal.

The bot runs best on port 25 to receive all incoming mail to your server. The bot does not (currently) send mail out, but does process all inbound emails to try and get them to the proper room (letting them disappear if no room can be mapped).

  1. Set up an MX record to point to your domain. For example, email.t2bot.io 10 vps3.t2l.io (email.t2bot.io being the domain, 10 the priority, and vps3.t2l.io being the server's hostname)
  2. Optionally install spamassassin and spamc: sudo apt-get install spamassassin spamc - be sure to enable them!
  3. Install nodejs and npm (v14+ preferred).
  4. Clone this repository and run yarn install.
  5. Copy config/default.yaml to config/production.yaml and configure accordingly.
  6. Set the environment variable NODE_ENV to production and run yarn start.
  7. Start using your bot!

There is also a Docker image available at t2bot/matrix-email-bot - map your config to /app/config/production.yaml.

Running with an existing mail server

TODO: Instructions on how to set up postfix

If mail is currently being managed for your domain, or you'd like to filter the incoming mail in a more intelligent manner before it reaches the bot, set enabled to false under mail in the configuration file. This will disable the default SMTP listener on the bot.

The existing mail server will need to be configured to run an external program so mail can be sent to the bot. Have the mail server run node post_message.js in the bot's directory to post a message from the standard input pipe. If the email is in file form, use the following syntax: node post_message.js path/to/file.eml.

Subscribing to mailing lists

Some mailing lists require you to send an email in order to subscribe. This requires setting up a mailserver (such as postfix) in send-only mode because the bot is handling incoming mail. After setting up your mail server, use it to send an email to the list with the From address being the room you'd like to announce to. For example: echo "Subscribe" | mail -s "Subscribe" [email protected] -aFrom:[email protected]

Migration from v1

The bot now stores everything under a single configurable storagePath. The following should be moved there:

  • ./db/attachments -> $storagePath/attachments
  • ./db/production.db -> $storagePath/emails.db

The bot also supports encryption now: it will create a device and such all on its own. It is recommended to log out of all access tokens for the bot and re-create one manually using a login script instead of getting an access token from a crypto-capable client.

For operational purposes, everything under the storagePath should be backed up and persisted.