How To Install ssmtp on Ubuntu 18.04
Introduction
In this tutorial we learn how to install ssmtp on Ubuntu 18.04.
What is ssmtp
ssmtp is:
A secure, effective and simple way of getting mail off a system to your mail hub. It contains no suid-binaries or other dangerous things - no mail spool to poke around in, and no daemons running in the background. Mail is simply forwarded to the configured mailhost. Extremely easy configuration.
WARNING: the above is all it does; it does not receive mail, expand aliases or manage a queue. That belongs on a mail hub with a system administrator.
There are three methods to install ssmtp on Ubuntu 18.04. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.
Install ssmtp Using apt-get
Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.
sudo apt-get update
After updating apt database, We can install ssmtp using apt-get by running the following command:
sudo apt-get -y install ssmtp
Install ssmtp Using apt
Update apt database with apt using the following command.
sudo apt update
After updating apt database, We can install ssmtp using apt by running the following command:
sudo apt -y install ssmtp
Install ssmtp Using aptitude
If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.
sudo aptitude update
After updating apt database, We can install ssmtp using aptitude by running the following command:
sudo aptitude -y install ssmtp
How To Uninstall ssmtp on Ubuntu 18.04
To uninstall only the ssmtp package we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get remove ssmtp
Uninstall ssmtp And Its Dependencies
To uninstall ssmtp and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu 18.04, we can use the command below:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove ssmtp
Remove ssmtp Configurations and Data
To remove ssmtp configuration and data from Ubuntu 18.04 we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y purge ssmtp
Remove ssmtp configuration, data, and all of its dependencies
We can use the following command to remove ssmtp configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge ssmtp
References
Summary
In this tutorial we learn how to install ssmtp package on Ubuntu 18.04 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.