Using git send email
Since the release of Git for Windows 2.x, this information is no longer relevant, as Git for Windows 2.x does include SSL.pm (but not MSMTP), meaning that there's nothing Windows specific about setting up git-send-email any more. The information might still be valid for people who does not run Git for Windows 2.x, so the rest of the page is left here for reference.
When submitting patches to git and/or msysgit, the preferred method is to inline the patch into an e-mail to the mailing list. This can be done through the send-email tool that comes with git.
This guide assumes the following:
- Git for Windows / msysgit 1.6.4 (or later).
- An e-mail account that supports SMTP.
git send-email for Windows currently supports sending e-mail through MSMTP, a command-line tool for sending mail. In order to do this, you need to setup msmtp to send e-mail through your e-mail provider's smtp-server.
The msmtp configuration should be located in $HOME/msmtprc.txt (bash) or %USERPROFILE%\msmtprc.txt (cmd.exe). If the file doesn't exist, create it. The details on how to setup this configuration file can be found in the MSMTP Documentation.
# setup some defaults
defaults
tls_trust_file c:/msysgit/mingw/bin/curl-ca-bundle.crt
logfile ~/.msmtp.log
# create an account called "default"
account default
# setup server host and port
host smtp.gmail.com
port 587
# enable TLS
tls on
# try to enable this when "Testing MSMTP" hangs
# tls_starttls off
# set FROM address
from username@gmail.com
# setup authentication
auth on
user username@gmail.com
Replace "username" with your own GMail username.
Execute the command echo "test" | msmtp user@host on the command line (where "user@host" should be your own e-mail address). This should work both from bash and cmd.exe. If you've set up msmtp to use authentication, you should get a password promtp. The program should exit cleanly, and an e-mail (with empty subject and the body "test") should have been sent to your e-mail account. If you don't get any e-mail, please consult the MSMTP Documentation.
The Git for Windows installer should setup sendemail.smtpserver to /mingw/bin/msmtp.exe. This can be verified by executing the command git config sendemail.smtpserver. If this hasn't been set up yet, execute git config --global sendemail.smtpserver /mingw/bin/msmtp.exe.
Go to a git-repo, and execute the following command
git send-email --suppress-cc=all --to user@host HEAD^
(where user@host is replaced with your e-mail address). This should send the most recent patch from that repo to your e-mail account.
Unable to initialize SMTP properly. Is there something wrong with your config?
at C:\msysgit/libexec/git-core/git-send-email line 929, <FIN> line 4.
This error is caused by git send-email when it's trying to send the e-mail directly, and not through ESMTP. This can be caused either by lacking git-config, or by your git installation not being up to date.
Have a look if your e-mail provider supports the STARTTLS behavior. If not, set "tls_starttls off" in the msmtp configuration.