community.general.mail module – Send an email

Note

This module is part of the community.general collection (version 4.8.3).

You might already have this collection installed if you are using the ansible package. It is not included in ansible-core. To check whether it is installed, run ansible-galaxy collection list.

To install it, use: ansible-galaxy collection install community.general.

To use it in a playbook, specify: community.general.mail.

Synopsis

  • This module is useful for sending emails from playbooks.

  • One may wonder why automate sending emails? In complex environments there are from time to time processes that cannot be automated, either because you lack the authority to make it so, or because not everyone agrees to a common approach.

  • If you cannot automate a specific step, but the step is non-blocking, sending out an email to the responsible party to make them perform their part of the bargain is an elegant way to put the responsibility in someone else’s lap.

  • Of course sending out a mail can be equally useful as a way to notify one or more people in a team that a specific action has been (successfully) taken.

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

attach

list / elements=path

A list of pathnames of files to attach to the message.

Attached files will have their content-type set to application/octet-stream.

Default: []

bcc

list / elements=string

The email-address(es) the mail is being ‘blind’ copied to.

This is a list, which may contain address and phrase portions.

body

string

The body of the email being sent.

cc

list / elements=string

The email-address(es) the mail is being copied to.

This is a list, which may contain address and phrase portions.

charset

string

The character set of email being sent.

Default: “utf-8”

ehlohost

string

added in 3.8.0 of community.general

Allows for manual specification of host for EHLO.

headers

list / elements=string

A list of headers which should be added to the message.

Each individual header is specified as header=value (see example below).

Default: []

host

string

The mail server.

Default: “localhost”

password

string

If SMTP requires password.

port

integer

The mail server port.

This must be a valid integer between 1 and 65534

Default: 25

secure

string

If always, the connection will only send email if the connection is Encrypted. If the server doesn’t accept the encrypted connection it will fail.

If try, the connection will attempt to setup a secure SSL/TLS session, before trying to send.

If never, the connection will not attempt to setup a secure SSL/TLS session, before sending

If starttls, the connection will try to upgrade to a secure SSL/TLS connection, before sending. If it is unable to do so it will fail.

Choices:

  • always

  • never

  • starttls

  • try ← (default)

sender

aliases: from

string

The email-address the mail is sent from. May contain address and phrase.

Default: “root”

subject

aliases: msg

string / required

The subject of the email being sent.

subtype

string

The minor mime type, can be either plain or html.

The major type is always text.

Choices:

  • html

  • plain ← (default)

timeout

integer

Sets the timeout in seconds for connection attempts.

Default: 20

to

aliases: recipients

list / elements=string

The email-address(es) the mail is being sent to.

This is a list, which may contain address and phrase portions.

Default: “root”

username

string

If SMTP requires username.

Examples

- name: Example playbook sending mail to root
  community.general.mail:
    subject: System {{ ansible_hostname }} has been successfully provisioned.
  delegate_to: localhost

- name: Sending an e-mail using Gmail SMTP servers
  community.general.mail:
    host: smtp.gmail.com
    port: 587
    username: [email protected]
    password: mysecret
    to: John Smith <[email protected]>
    subject: Ansible-report
    body: System {{ ansible_hostname }} has been successfully provisioned.
  delegate_to: localhost

- name: Send e-mail to a bunch of users, attaching files
  community.general.mail:
    host: 127.0.0.1
    port: 2025
    subject: Ansible-report
    body: Hello, this is an e-mail. I hope you like it ;-)
    from: [email protected] (Jane Jolie)
    to:
    - John Doe <[email protected]>
    - Suzie Something <[email protected]>
    cc: Charlie Root <root@localhost>
    attach:
    - /etc/group
    - /tmp/avatar2.png
    headers:
    - [email protected]
    - X-Special="Something or other"
    charset: us-ascii
  delegate_to: localhost

- name: Sending an e-mail using the remote machine, not the Ansible controller node
  community.general.mail:
    host: localhost
    port: 25
    to: John Smith <[email protected]>
    subject: Ansible-report
    body: System {{ ansible_hostname }} has been successfully provisioned.

- name: Sending an e-mail using Legacy SSL to the remote machine
  community.general.mail:
    host: localhost
    port: 25
    to: John Smith <[email protected]>
    subject: Ansible-report
    body: System {{ ansible_hostname }} has been successfully provisioned.
    secure: always

- name: Sending an e-mail using StartTLS to the remote machine
  community.general.mail:
    host: localhost
    port: 25
    to: John Smith <[email protected]>
    subject: Ansible-report
    body: System {{ ansible_hostname }} has been successfully provisioned.
    secure: starttls

- name: Sending an e-mail using StartTLS, remote server, custom EHLO
  community.general.mail:
    host: some.smtp.host.tld
    port: 25
    ehlohost: my-resolvable-hostname.tld
    to: John Smith <[email protected]>
    subject: Ansible-report
    body: System {{ ansible_hostname }} has been successfully provisioned.
    secure: starttls

Authors

  • Dag Wieers (@dagwieers)