Part-DB-server/docs/installation/email.md

title	layout	parent	nav_order
Email	default	Installation	12

Email

Part-DB can communicate with its users via email. At the moment this is only used to send password reset links, but in future this will be used for other things too.

To make emails work you have to properly configure a mail provider in Part-DB.

Configuration

Part-DB uses Symfony Mailer to send emails, which supports multiple mail providers (like Mailgun, SendGrid, or Brevo). If you want to use one of these providers, check the Symfony Mailer documentation for more information.

We will only cover the configuration of an SMTP provider here, which is sufficient for most use-cases. You will need an email account, which you can use to send emails from via password-based SMTP authentication, this account should be dedicated to Part-DB.

Using specialized mail providers (Mailgun, SendGrid, etc.)

If you want to use a specialized mail provider like Mailgun, SendGrid, Brevo (formerly Sendinblue), Amazon SES, or Postmark instead of SMTP, you need to install the corresponding Symfony mailer package first.

Docker installation

If you are using Part-DB in Docker, you can install additional mailer packages by setting the COMPOSER_EXTRA_PACKAGES environment variable in your docker-compose.yaml:

environment:
  - COMPOSER_EXTRA_PACKAGES=symfony/mailgun-mailer
  - MAILER_DSN=mailgun+api://API_KEY:DOMAIN@default
  - EMAIL_SENDER_EMAIL=noreply@yourdomain.com
  - EMAIL_SENDER_NAME=Part-DB
  - ALLOW_EMAIL_PW_RESET=1

You can install multiple packages by separating them with spaces:

environment:
  - COMPOSER_EXTRA_PACKAGES=symfony/mailgun-mailer symfony/sendgrid-mailer

The packages will be installed automatically when the container starts.

Common mailer packages:

• symfony/mailgun-mailer - For Mailgun
• symfony/sendgrid-mailer - For SendGrid
• symfony/brevo-mailer - For Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)
• symfony/amazon-mailer - For Amazon SES
• symfony/postmark-mailer - For Postmark

Direct installation (non-Docker)

If you have installed Part-DB directly on your server (not in Docker), you need to manually install the required mailer package using composer.

Navigate to your Part-DB installation directory and run:

# Install the package as the web server user
sudo -u www-data composer require symfony/mailgun-mailer

# Clear the cache
sudo -u www-data php bin/console cache:clear

Replace symfony/mailgun-mailer with the package you need. You can install multiple packages at once:

sudo -u www-data composer require symfony/mailgun-mailer symfony/sendgrid-mailer

After installing the package, configure the MAILER_DSN in your .env.local file according to the provider's documentation (see Symfony Mailer documentation for DSN format for each provider).

SMTP Configuration

To configure the SMTP provider, you have to set the following environment variables:

MAILER_DSN: You have to provide the SMTP server address and the credentials for the email account here. The format is the following: smtp://<username>:<password>@<smtp-server-address>:<port>. In most cases the username is the email address of the account, and the port is 587. So the resulting DSN could look like this: smtp://j.doe@mail.invalid:SUPER_SECRET_PA$$WORD@smtp.mail.invalid:587.

EMAIL_SENDER_EMAIL: This is the email address which will be used as sender address for all emails sent by Part-DB. This should be the same email address as the one used in the MAILER_DSN (the email address of your email account): e.g. j.doe@mail.invalid.

EMAIL_SENDER_NAME: This is the name which will be used as sender name for all emails sent by Part-DB. This can be anything you want, e.g. My Part-DB Mailer.

Now you can enable the possibility to reset password by setting the ALLOW_EMAIL_PW_RESET env to 1 (or true).