Email settings

The Kallithea configuration file has several email related settings. When these contain correct values, Kallithea will send email in the situations described below. If the email configuration is not correct so that emails cannot be sent, all mails will show up in the log output.

Before any email can be sent, an SMTP server has to be configured using the configuration file setting smtp_server. If required for that server, specify a username (smtp_username) and password (smtp_password), a non-standard port (smtp_port), whether to use “SSL” when connecting (smtp_use_ssl) or use STARTTLS (smtp_use_tls), and/or specify special ESMTP “auth” features (smtp_auth).

For example, for sending through gmail, use:

smtp_server = smtp.gmail.com
smtp_username = username
smtp_password = password
smtp_port = 465
smtp_use_ssl = true

Application emails

Kallithea sends an email to users on several occasions:

  • when comments are given on one of their changesets
  • when comments are given on changesets they are reviewer on or on which they commented regardless
  • when they are invited as reviewer in pull requests
  • when they request a password reset

Kallithea sends an email to all administrators upon new account registration. Administrators are users with the Admin flag set on the Admin > Users page.

When Kallithea wants to send an email but due to an error cannot correctly determine the intended recipients, the administrators and the addresses specified in email_to in the configuration file are used as fallback.

Recipients will see these emails originating from the sender specified in the app_email_from setting in the configuration file. This setting can either contain only an email address, like kallithea-noreply@example.com, or both a name and an address in the following format: Kallithea <kallithea-noreply@example.com>. However, if the email is sent due to an action of a particular user, for example when a comment is given or a pull request created, the name of that user will be combined with the email address specified in app_email_from to form the sender (and any name part in that configuration setting disregarded).

The subject of these emails can optionally be prefixed with the value of email_prefix in the configuration file.

A Kallithea-specific header indicating the email type will be added to each email. This header can be used for email filtering. The header is of the form:

X-Kallithea-Notification-Type: <type>

where <type> is one of:

  • pull_request: you are invited as reviewer in a pull request
  • pull_request_comment: a comment was given on a pull request
  • cs_comment: a comment was given on a changeset
  • registration: a new user was registered
  • message: another type of email

Error emails

When an exception occurs in Kallithea – and unless interactive debugging is enabled using set debug = true in the [app:main] section of the configuration file – an email with exception details is sent by backlash to the addresses specified in email_to in the configuration file.

Recipients will see these emails originating from the sender specified in the error_email_from setting in the configuration file. This setting can either contain only an email address, like kallithea-noreply@example.com, or both a name and an address in the following format: Kallithea Errors <kallithea-noreply@example.com>.