Bugzilla 5.2 email_in.pl documentation

[Jona Müller]

> There are some docs on the email_in script itself, not easy to find or
> detailed though.

Yes, I've found these in the source but they're more about how to format the
mails themselves. 

> We carry a GPG patch for email_in.pl in case anyone wants it. You have to
> set your public key in your profile before you can use the mail_in facility.

Certainly interested in that. The pubkeys in the profile are also part of your
patch? 

> A problem with mail in is that it's insecure as it has no authentication.

Fortunately we dont have the problem with user authentication, because all our
Bugzilla users have their mailboxes hosted on our mailserver, the bugmail and
mail in also run through there (to the postfix on the bugzilla machine). And its
so strict it rejects our other mailservers without whitelisting :)

But thats pretty much a corner case plus I have to acknowledge that certainly
not everybody runs their own public mailserver or even reasonably *can* do that
nowadays.

ys,
Jona Müller
-- 
================================
Independend GmbH

Jona.Mueller at independend.ch
+49 6832 265556

http://ind.me

On Mon, Mar 09, 2026 at 09:35:34AM +1000, Jeffrey Fearn wrote:
> On 7/3/2026 5:22 AM, David Miller via developers wrote:
> > Thanks!  The documentation is at https://github.com/bugzilla/bugzilla/
> > tree/5.2/docs/en/rst
> > 
> > (or at docs/en/rst within your checked out copy)
> > 
> > RST is "Restructured Text" and it's fairly similar to Markdown (which
> > github uses in comments and a lot of wikis use), though the syntax is a
> > little different.
> > 
> > Long term I think it'll be way easier to set up if we let Bugzilla log
> > into an IMAP account on a cron job and retrieve messages rather than
> > trying to pipe them through Postfix. But until then, better docs for the
> > Postfix forwarding method would definitely be appreciated.
> > 
> > If you can't figure out RST, you can always just write up a general doc
> > with the instructions and post it here or something and one of us can
> > reformat it into RST to get it into the tree.
> > 
> > On 3/4/26 12:02 PM, Jona Müller via developers wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > > 
> > > please correct me if this is not the correct place to post this.
> > > 
> > > I've been maintaining bugzilla installations for over 10 years and
> > > always been
> > > very happy with it, never causes problems. We are using one
> > > internally more like
> > > a ticket system and not a bug tracker.
> > > 
> > > For quite some time I've known that at least sometime in the past it was
> > > possible to file bugs via email but only recently got to actually
> > > setting it up.
> > > 
> > > Really wasn't straightforward but I got it working with postfix piping to
> > > email_in.pl via .forward of a dedicated bugzilla system user.
> > > 
> > > There is only very limited information on this to be found and it also is
> > > completely absent from any current documentation.
> > > 
> > > I would be happy to contribute documentation on how to set it up.
> There are some docs on the email_in script itself, not easy to find or
> detailed though.
> 
> https://bugzilla.readthedocs.io/en/5.2/integrating/api/email_in.html
> 
> A problem with mail in is that it's insecure as it has no authentication.
> 
> IMO making an email client is a sub-optimal solution. SMTP ingress is
> reasonably easy to set up and is the sane way of doing this.
> 
> We use exim for this, it basically has 2 bz specific settings .... just in
> case someone wants to use or document it ;)
> 
> A route:
> 
>       to_bz:
>         driver = accept
>         domains = +local_domains
>         transport = to_bz
>         no_more
> 
> A transport:
> 
>       to_bz:
>         driver      = pipe
>         command     = /var/www/html/bugzilla/email_in.pl
> 
> This is a dedicated service, you might need more settings if your mail
> ingress handles multiple services.
> 
> We carry a GPG patch for email_in.pl in case anyone wants it. You have to
> set your public key in your profile before you can use the mail_in facility.
> 
> Cheers, Jeff.
> 
> 
> 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 833 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.bugzilla.org/pipermail/developers/attachments/20260309/19f930a8/attachment.sig>