django-smtpdev

What is django-smtpdev?

django-smtpdev is a brand new, exciting and shiny reusable app for Django which allows you to run a development SMTP server for use when working on your fantastic Django-based projects. It uses all the amazingness of Python’s included batteries, combined with Django’s simplicity of set-up and damn fine admin interface, to make viewing the email output of your app quick, easy and fun.

That’s it for the pitch. Now for the instructions.

How do I use it?

There is a sort-of four-or-five-step method to doing this, but your particular case may vary. If your a Django customization nut, then you’re probably smart enough to figure out how to get it to work anyway. But at least some basic instructions would be prudent, if not necessary.

1. Install the app. Put it somewhere on your path, or just do python setup.py install from the app’s root directory to install it. You might have to run that last command there as root, using sudo (if on UNIX).

2. Then install the app, by putting ‘smtpdev’ into your INSTALLED_APPS list in your Django settings. This enables you to use the management command runsmtpdev within your project, which comes in handy later. Don’t forget to run python manage.py syncdb after installation too, which installs the necessary database models.

3. You then have to add a single URL to your URLconf. It’s a good idea to stick to the default, which is (r’^_smtp/‘, ’smtpdev.receive’). It’s also recommended that you use the admin interface with this app. This lets you view all the e-mails sent by your application in the browser. Which is nice.

4. In your settings.py file, set EMAIL_PORT to 2552 and EMAIL_HOST to ‘127.0.0.1’. This can be changed, but in that case there’s a bit more config involved. Run python manage.py runsmtpdev --help for additional information.

5. Finally, to start the development SMTP server, run the command python manage.py runsmtpdev. This will start the server process; people skilled in the UNIX command line will know that you could do something like python manage.py runsmtpdev > smtp.log & to start it as a background service. You can then run python manage.py runserver and the Django development HTTP server will run as usual. Enjoy!

Author

django-smtpdev was lovingly written by Zachary Voase. He can be found on twitter as @disturbyte, and can be contacted via email as HIS_TWITTER_USERNAME [at] gmail [dot] com.

License

GPL version 3. But if you want to distribute this library with something which is under a different license, I’ll be happy to dual-license; just email me.