Ssmtp sending via gmail, but gmail complains “Delivery to the following recipend failed”

Question

I configured ssmtp on my ubuntu machine according to many sources on the net. My ssmtp.conf is:

root=my_email@gmail.com
mailhub=smtp.gmail.com:587
rewriteDomain=eurybiades
hostname=
UseTLS=Yes
UseSTARTTLS=Yes
AuthUser=my_email
AuthPass=****
FromLineOverride=YES

and revaliases:

root:my_email@gmail.com:smtp.gmail.com:587
root@eurybiades:my_email@gmail.com:smtp.gmail.com:587

Then when I try to send email to root by mutt, the email is sent, but there is also email from gmail saying:

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

    root@eurybiades

Technical details of permanent failure:
DNS Error: Domain name not found

What can I do not to receive this emails from gmail?

Answer 1

Use your fully qualified domain (example.com not example) in the rewrite specification. You may need to purchase a domain if you haven't already.

EDIT: Drop the rewrite domain line as you don't have a valid domain. Add a root alias of the form root=user@example.com. This should be the email address you want to receive the mail.

Answer 2

Please note that this email is caused by ssmtp trying to send you system emails via your Gmail account.

This only happens when there's an issue with the script which contains your email command.

If you fix the problem with your script (mine was access issues with rsyncv, for example) your system won't have any system emails to send, and Gmail won't complain about the domain not being found.

It might also be relevant that you don't have a system-side email client on your system, so the only way system messages can be sent are by ssmtp, through Gmail, to your system accounts, which, again, will cause these symptoms.