Working with E-Mail¶
Sending E-Mail¶
Review Board requires access to an SMTP server in order to send e-mails. This should ideally be one that lives on the same network (though for performance reasons, not the same server). The SMTP server can be configured on the E-Mail Settings page.
It’s also very important that the server responds fast enough to requests to send e-mail. Any delays in server communication will directly affect the responsiveness of Review Board, particularly when publishing review requests or reviews.
Review Board cannot be configured to use a local Mail Transfer Agent like sendmail.
Sender Headers¶
Review Board can send e-mail on behalf of users. This may happen when creating a new review request or reviewing some code.
By default, e-mails appear to be sent from the users, rather than from Review Board itself. The From field will contain the full name and e-mail address of the user, helping the thread appear as a standard discussion over e-mail.
However, if the e-mail address’s domain has a DMARC record that rejects or quarantines suspicious e-mails, this behavior will be turned off, instead using the Default From address configured in E-Mail Settings.
All e-mail setups are different, and some are more strict than others. If the default behavior is not working out for you, you can change it to always use the user’s address, regardless of DMARC record, or to only ever use the default address. This is done through the Use user’s From address setting.
Sender Verification through DKIM¶
Using the From and Sender fields may not be enough. To properly configure Review Board to send e-mail, you may need a sufficient DKIM setup. DKIM allows the receiver to verify that the e-mail was actually sent from the server it appears to be sent from.
DKIM support may need to be configured on your mail server software. Configuring DKIM is beyond the scope of this documentation, as it may vary greatly between different servers.
Along with the mail server configuration, you will need to configure your DNS records.
There are many guides out there for DKIM. See the following: