Git send-email using Gmail

readme.md

1. Configure git.

# ~/.config/git/config
[sendemail]
  confirm = auto
  smtpServer = smtp.gmail.com
  smtpServerPort = 587
  smtpEncryption = tls
  smtpUser = <gmail email address>

2. Configure Authentication.

I believe the simplest setup is to create an application-specific password in Google dedicated to git.

Google Account -> Security -> Signing in to Google : App passwords

This password must be configured in git, but should be kept outside of your main gitconfig (which is likely versioned via a dotfile repo?). To do that, I use git's [include] directive.

# ~/.config/git/config
[include]
  path = config.local # (relative or absolute path to the other config file)

# ~/.config/git/config.local
[sendemail]
  smtpPass = <app-specific-password>

Alternatively, check out https://github.com/google/gmail-oauth2-tools/tree/master/go/sendgmail which supports authenticating to GMail with OAuth2.

3. Determine your revlist.

To send a single commit, just use the sha. To send a range of commits, you can use start_sha..end_sha. Most likely, you'll want to send the commits made to a branch that are missing in upstream. For that, you would use: upstream/branch_name..branch_name You can also use relative numbers to indicate the "previous X commits". e.g. git send-email -3

4. Send email:

git send-email <revlist> --to <[email protected]>

5. If you receive an error like this:

Can't locate Net/SMTP/SSL.pm in @INC (@INC contains: ...

You may need to upgrade/install the Net::SMTP::SSL or IO::Socket::SSL packages:

sudo -H cpan Net::SMTP::SSL
sudo -H cpan IO::Socket::SSL

6. Advanced: configure multiple identites. You may configure multiple smtp servers and switch between them with identities.

[sendemail "gmail"]
  smtpUser = [email protected]
  smtpServer = smtp.gmail.com

[sendemail "outlook"]
  smtpUser = [email protected]
  smtpServer = smtp.office365.com
  
[sendemail]
  identity = outlook

Note: I couldn't make an app password, and kept getting junk ilke this despite repeatedly visiting the link and verifying my identity:

5.7.14 <https://accounts.google.com/signin/continue?sarp=1&scc=1&plt=AKgnsbuh
5.7.14 Sqh-d0mO0m15az13tmQgNJo8Clb9qT4TFHpiAyDRZmgrIcnO5iamPxcRUIr8wVOg6OPszB
5.7.14 VCCL1wb6mAT4aguBGLJ_-rKb5KptizHkWGrViPN6MDJMyuSc2Z7viiBHMVbpZKTkYqAmvz
5.7.14 ZH0w1ngbi_5o8w3oCE4XNIPNQKN0hJHwtO9c92uXVvj0SJFpYNX3SWFSte96tdAi75YUcR
5.7.14 rrTezfVs62SP10G7yhz597BWv4skqmpYlavZMwjNIaaTDkFM6MILIP0ubtRYGNI5dnAsuR
5.7.14 -07yiifJYq826D3PXorhlbEgGh_W469_dhuUJ_p70Krp0rLHvSIwHuZue4zcXCvbf2cDSS
5.7.14 sSfRO1UcmjuMyRVxUSU568c4mJp9GDgmCAnIWg3zHAMztpBrnMUAYwYaS_VvACiJ5e7y06
5.7.14 yWkveGA07XUX4UTWFhoHMKX80jhPwUHwpJngkz8Xl6AO9OHyUu2Qg3-QBvoU3FDfxiCRSg
5.7.14 eCRfw> Please log in via your web browser and then try again.
5.7.14  Learn more at
5.7.14  https://support.google.com/mail/answer/78754 p5-v6sm17682914qkd.81 - gsmtp

The solution was:
A) posted a complaint on the google help forums at https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/gmail ... I didn't get a reply, but after my post my account magically let me through some of the issues
B) log into my account from a local system, with no proxy (I was using Tor before)
C) enable 2-factor authentication
D) now, I could generate an app password and log in using git send-email (even from tor!) !

I had to turn on "less secure apps" at https://myaccount.google.com/lesssecureapps to make this work.

Thanks for the tip @johnlinp! I think it might've taken me awhile to find that 😄

For those who don't want to use their Gmail password for this or enable "less secure apps", I wrote a plug-in for git-send-email that uses OAuth 2 authorization. It requests only the minimum required permissions (send email on your behalf) and stores OAuth token data in Windows Credential Store, like Git Credential Manager does. Google has a plug-in which works in a similar fashion, but keeps credentials in a file, and uses less restricted tokens (all of Gmail vs just send email on your behalf). It works on Linux though.

[email protected]

@johnlinp, it looks like you have to either use 2-factor authentication with an app-specific password, OR allow less secure app access. See here: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-send-email#_use_gmail_as_the_smtp_server. I'd rather do the former, as it seems more-secure. I'm attempting to set this up now...

From: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-send-email#_use_gmail_as_the_smtp_server:

If you have multi-factor authentication set up on your Gmail account, you will need to generate an app-specific password for use with git send-email. Visit https://security.google.com/settings/security/apppasswords to create it.

If you do not have multi-factor authentication set up on your Gmail account, you will need to allow less secure app access. Visit https://myaccount.google.com/lesssecureapps to enable it.

After a great deal of effort, I got it all working. See my full instructions on Stack Overflow now, here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/68238912/how-to-configure-and-use-git-send-email-to-work-with-gmail-to-email-patches-to/68238913#68238913

After a great deal of effort, I got it all working. See my full instructions on Stack Overflow now, here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/68238912/how-to-configure-and-use-git-send-email-to-work-with-gmail-to-email-patches-to/68238913#68238913

great work !

On Manjaro (21.08), git config: ~/.gitconfig
And need these packages: perl-mime-tools perl-authen-sasl

I had to turn on "less secure apps" at https://myaccount.google.com/lesssecureapps to make this work.

This will no longer work after May 30, as of Google said to me.