Committer e-mail configuration

An e-mail address at apache.org is associated with every committer account. Occasional official Apache e-mails will be directed to this account. It is very important that you check mail sent to your apache.org e-mail address regularly for announcements. You are also free to use this address for other ASF work related to projects you work on.

Note that the infrastructure group provides an e-mail address for you; however they do not provide a mailbox — you must setup forwarding for this address to be able to read your mails. Instructions on how to setup your forwarding address file are available. Be sure to keep your forwarding address up to date in the future as well.

Reading e-mail from your apache.org address

When your committer account is first created by Infrastructure, the forwarding e-mail address is set to the address provided in the account request (and, typically, in the ICLA). You must keep your forwarding address up-to-date. (You can have more than one forwarding address.) You can view and change your forwarding addresses in two ways:

  • On the Web, by using the Selfserve app at https://id.apache.org/

  • On people.apache.org, by connecting via ssh and issueing the following command to display the file:

    ldapsearch -LLL uid=$USER mail

    or the following command to replace all your forwarding addresses with a given address:

    update-email.sh new-address@example.tld $USER

Note: It used to be possible to change the forwarding address by editing ~/.forward and/or ~/.qmail files. This is no longer possible. Any manual changes made to these files will be lost!

Note: It used to be possible to not have a forwarding address. This is no longer possible.

Users of GMail (Googlemail) please note that only one copy of an e-mail is shown by GMail. If you try to test forwarding by sending a message to your ASF account from the GMail account that is the target of the .forward, it can be difficult to tell if it has worked. Send the test e-mail from a different account.

Sending e-mail from your apache.org address

It is not a requirement that you use this e-mail address to send e-mail to your project mailing lists. Use whatever e-mail address you like.
Typically, you should use the same e-mail address to subscribe to various project lists that you send e-mail from. There are certain other mailing lists that are only available to committers, but still you don't need to use your apache address - the moderators will know who you are. There are more helpful tips about becoming a new committer.

Via sender address faking

One method which can be used to send mail from your apache.org account is to fake the sender (by posting through a standard account with the from address set to your-username@apache.org) rather than logging on to your Apache user then trying to post. How to fake the sender depends on the e-mail client used. This works in most situations.

The recommended method is to use the new SSL-enabled, SMTP-AUTH based mail submission service on people.apache.org port 465.
By logging into that service you will be able to send e-mail with your SMTP envelope set to match your apache.org account.

Say goodbye to all the ezmlm moderation battles: Your SMTP envelope sender will now match your From header!

In the future, we may wish to tighten up the SPF records for apache.org, so please take advantage of this new service for all outbound delivery of your personal apache.org e-mail.

Note: For now, this service is using a self-signed SSL certificate, so you may have to define an exception rule for this service in your mail client. For the certificate's fingerprint, please see the machines list.

Note: If you are using Gmail for your apache.org e-mail, there is a way to configure it to take advantage of this service. See Gmail's recently announced feature to allow outbound mail from your apache.org address to be directed to people.apache.org, instead of to a Gmail server, for delivery.

Via port forwarding

Advanced users may use port forwarding to occasionally send e-mail from their apache.org address. This is not typically recommended, but is possible. Brief instructions on Windows for using PuTTY and Thunderbird are included below.
Reminder: This is not supported, so please make sure you know what you are doing first.

  • Ensure your SSH login to people.apache.org works first

  • In PuTTY, select settings Category: Connection, SSH, Tunnels

  • Under Add new forwarded port:, enter:

  • Source port: 1028 (or any other port above 1024)

  • Destination: localhost:25

  • Ensure the "Local" radiobutton is selected

  • Press the Add button

  • Login and leave the session running. This forwards the local port 1028 from your machine to the local port 25 for SMTP on people.apache.org

  • In Thunderbird, select Tools, Account Settings, Outgoing Server (SMTP)

  • Press Add...

  • Description: Tunnel thru ASF (or whatever you like)

  • Server Name: localhost

  • Port: 1028 (or whatever Source port you set above)

  • Press OK to save this SMTP server setting

  • Be sure to use an Identity that uses this SMTP server setting, not your normal one