---
name: "rt-mailgate-3.0"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "rt3-clients"
version: "3.0.12-7"
release: "Debian 3.1 (Sarge)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/rt-mailgate-3.0"
---

# rt-mailgate-3.0(1)

Mail gateway for Request Tracker

## NAME

rt-mailgate - Mail gateway for Request Tracker

## SYNOPSIS

```
    rt-mailgate --help : this text
```

Usual invocation (from MTA):

```
    rt-mailgate --action (correspond⎪comment) --queue queuename
                --url http://your.rt.server/
                [ --debug ]
                [ --extension (queue⎪action⎪ticket) ]
                [ --timeout seconds ]
```

See `"man rt-mailgate"` for more.

## OPTIONS

- "--action"

  Specifies whether this is a correspondence or comment address.

- "--queue"

  Reflects which queue this address handles.

- "--url"

  The location of the web server for your RT instance.

- "--extension" OPTIONAL

  Some MTAs will route mail sent to user-foo@host or user+foo@host to user@host and present "foo" in the environment variable `$EXTENSION`. By specifying the value "queue" for this parameter, the queue this message should be submitted to will be set to the value of `$EXTENSION`. By specifying "ticket", `$EXTENSION` will be interpreted as the id of the ticket this message is related to.  "action" will allow the user to specify either "comment" or "correspond" in the address extension.

- "--debug" OPTIONAL

  Print debugging output to standard error

- "--timeout" OPTIONAL

  Configure the timeout for posting the message to the web server.  The default timeout is 3 minutes (180 seconds).

## DESCRIPTION

The RT mail gateway is the primary mechanism for communicating with RT via email. This program simply directs the email to the RT web server, which handles filing correspondence and sending out any required mail. It is designed to be run as part of the mail delivery process, either called directly by the MTA or `"procmail"`, or in a *.forward* or equivalent.

## SETUP

Much of the set up of the mail gateway depends on your MTA and mail routing configuration. However, you will need first of all to create an RT user for the mail gateway and assign it a password; this helps to ensure that mail coming into the web server did originate from the gateway.

Next, you need to route mail to `"rt-mailgate"` for the queues you're monitoring. For instance, if you're using */etc/aliases* and you have a "bugs" queue, you will want something like this:

```
    bugs:         "⎪/opt/rt3/bin/rt-mailgate --queue bugs --action correspond
              --url http://rt.mycorp.com/"
```

```
    bugs-comment: "⎪/opt/rt3/bin/rt-mailgate --queue bugs --action comment
              --url http://rt.mycorp.com/"
```

Note that you don't have to run your RT server on your mail server, as the mail gateway will happily relay to a different machine.

## CUSTOMIZATION

By default, the mail gateway will accept mail from anyone. However, there are situations in which you will want to authenticate users before allowing them to communicate with the system. You can do this via a plug-in mechanism in the RT configuration.

You can set the array `@RT::MailPlugins` to be a list of plugins. The default plugin, if this is not given, is `"Auth::MailFrom"` - that is, authentication of the person is done based on the `"From"` header of the email. If you have additional filters or authentication mechanisms, you can list them here and they will be called in order:

```
    @RT::MailPlugins = (
        "Filter::SpamAssassin",
        "Auth::LDAP",
        # ...
    );
```

See the documentation for any additional plugins you have.

You may also put Perl subroutines into the `@RT::MailPlugins` array, if they behave as described below.

## WRITING PLUGINS

What's actually going on in the above is that `@RT::MailPlugins` is a list of Perl modules; RT prepends `"RT::Interface::Email::"` to the name, to form a package name, and then `"use"`'s this module. The module is expected to provide a `"GetCurrentUser"` subroutine, which takes a hash of several parameters:

- Message

  A `"MIME::Entity"` object representing the email =item CurrentUser

  An `"RT::CurrentUser"` object

- AuthStat

  The authentication level returned from the previous plugin.

- Ticket \[OPTIONAL\]

  The ticket under discussion

- Queue \[OPTIONAL\]

  If we don't already have a ticket id, we need to know which queue we're talking about

- Action

  The action being performed. At the moment, it's one of "comment" or "correspond"

It returns two values, the new `"RT::CurrentUser"` object, and the new authentication level. The authentication level can be zero, not allowed to communicate with RT at all, (a "permission denied" error is mailed to the correspondent) or one, which is the normal mode of operation. Additionally, if `"-1"` is returned, then the processing of the plug-ins stops immediately and the message is ignored.