Email Setup

RStudio Connect has a number of features that depend on sending emails. Some examples include delivering content via email, sending administrative notifications, reporting job failures or even additional security.

Note

Versions of RStudio Connect before 1.7.4 allowed the email settings to be configured via the dashboard interface. These email settings were moved to a migration file and they should be transferred to your configuration file at your earliest convenience. See more about configuration migration in the Migration configuration appendix.

Post-install behavior

RStudio Connect installs with all email features disabled until an email provider is configured properly. Specifically, this is what to expect:

• Built-in password authentication will not be able to send emails to users with new account confirmation or password reset links. An administrator will be responsible for obtaining these links from the user profile page in the dashboard and pass them along to the user via other means.

• Notifications such as licensing limits, user requests for more privileges, or content errors will only be written to the logs.

• Content delivery via email will be disabled.

Configuring an email provider

RStudio Connect supports two options for sending emails: SMTP or sendmail. These options can be configured via the setting Server.EmailProvider.

• Sendmail is a mechanism for sending emails using the existing setup of the Linux installation that hosts RStudio Connect.

  Different Linux distributions have their own implementation compatible with Sendmail. Refer to your server's documentation to configure it.

• SMTP allows RStudio Connect to establish a direct connection to an email server for sending emails. In the RStudio Connect configuration file, you must provide the host and port of your SMTP server, user credentials if this server requires authentication, indication of whether the connection will be encrypted, and what encryption method will be used.

  All SMTP options are described in the SMTP configuration appendix. The SMTP settings are reloadable. This means that RStudio Connect does not need to be restarted to use new settings. Learn more about reloadable settings in the Reloadable Properties configuration appendix.

Note

The SMTP.Password can be encrypted to avoid credential leakage. See the Property Types configuration appendix for details.

Testing the email settings

You can see and test your current email settings from the RStudio Connect dashboard in the Admin>Settings panel. By sending a test email from this page you can confirm that the email features will work properly.

Configuring other email settings

There are a few other settings that should be configured in order to send emails from RStudio Connect.

It is expected that emails sent from RStudio Connect come from a known email address within your organization. This address must be configured using Server.SenderEmail.

The Server.SenderEmailDisplayName setting can be used to configure an alternate name for the server when sending system emails (e.g. "My RStudio Connect Server"). If there is no alternate name provided, then "RStudio Connect" will be used by default.

The subject line of emails sent from RStudio Connect will be prefixed with "[RStudio Connect]." If you wish to change this prefix use the setting Server.EmailSubjectPrefix.

When delivering content via email, initially there will be no option to send to all users. If there is need to do so, please enable that by using the setting Server.MailAll.

By default, RStudio Connect will send emails to recipients as BCC (blind carbon copy) so recipients will not have knowledge of each other's email addresses. In some situations the email provider of the recipients will detect that a number of users received a BCC copy of the same email and that will trigger the spam detection. If you see this behavior, the setting Server.EmailTo should be configured with a "no-reply" email address from your organization.

If you would like emailed reports sent by RStudio Connect to appear as if they were sent by the content owner's email address, then you can enable the setting Server.EmailFromUserAddresses. This will modify the message's From header to use the content owner's email address and the Sender header will use the configured Server.SenderEmail. This setting may not be compatible with all email servers. Check with your email administrator to find out if your email server can support messages sent on behalf of other users via the Sender header.

Note

Using the Server.EmailFromUserAddresses configuration may require some additional configuration on the part of your email administrator. Some email providers require additional verification proving that you own the addresses used to send emails. Check with your email administrator about limitations of the From and Sender headers.

Note

If you need additional privacy of the email addresses within your own organization, the setting Server.HideEmailAddresses can be used to hide all email addresses in the dashboard. Users will not be able to see each other's emails. Only administrators will be allowed to see all emails.

License-related emails can be configured using the settings from the Licensing section of the configuration file. See the Licensing configuration appendix for details.