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Using your username@kernel.org alias

We do not provide mailbox hosting to kernel.org members, but we do provide a redirect alias to the address you specified when requesting an account. The only other service we offer in addition to the redirect is outgoing mail SMTP.

Sending outgoing mail

You may wish to use our mail server to send out email – due to company policies or whatnot. First, you will need to obtain your SMTP password using the following command:

ssh git@gitolite.kernel.org getsmtppass

This will produce the following output:

SMTP password for user [username] was set to: [randomstring]

Example mutt settings:

    set smtp_url     = "smtp://[username]@mail.kernel.org:587/"
    set smtp_pass    = "[randomstring]"
    set from         = "[username]@kernel.org"
    set ssl_starttls = yes

Example git config settings:

    [sendemail]
            smtpserver     = mail.kernel.org
            smtpserverport = 587
            smtpencryption = tls
            from           = [username]@kernel.org
            smtpuser       = [username]
            smtppass       = [randomstring]

This passphrase will be shown only once. You can get a new one by
running:

    ssh git@gitolite.kernel.org getsmtppass reset

This will reset any existing smtp password, so use with care.

You should be able to use this output to configure any other client for authenticated SMTP sending. The automatically generated random password is not used for anything else, so there is little concern in leaving it cleartext in your configuration files.

Adding a kernel.org UID to your PGP key

If you are sending PGP-signed mail using your username@kernel.org email address, you should add that UID to the public key (should be the same key you used to apply for your kernel.org account).

gpg2 --quick-add-uid [keygrip] 'Firstname Lastname <username@kernel.org>'
gpg2 --send-keys [keygrip]

To find out your keygrip, you can run:

gpg2 --list-secret-keys

Your keygrip (in either a full form, or the last 16 characters) should be listed right under the sec line.

The kernel.org Web Key Directory

We publish the Web Key Directory (WKD) for all accounts, so once you add the kernel.org uid to your public key, people will be able to obtain your key automatically if they use an email client that supports automatic WKD key retrieval. If they use the default TOFU trust mechanism, the key retrieved from kernel.org will be automatically marked as trusted.

To check which key we have in the WKD, you can run the following command:

GNUPGHOME=$(mktemp -d) gpg2 --auto-key-locate wkd --locate-keys [username]@kernel.org 

The output should display which key ID was retrieved from the WKD. If instead you see an error message like this:

gpg: key [keygrip]: no valid user IDs
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:           w/o user IDs: 1
gpg: error retrieving '[username]@kernel.org' via WKD: No fingerprint

This means there is no corresponding username@kernel.org uid on the key retrieved from the directory. If you've just added the kernel.org uid to your key, it takes about 24 hours for the WKD to be regenerated. If you repeatedly get this error even after 24 hours, please contact support.

Changing your forwarding address

Please send a request to support with your username and the new desired destination.

:!: The new address must match one of the UIDs on your PGP key and exist on keyservers. See the section above for instructions on how to add a UID to your PGP key.

We can also forward to multiple destinations. Follow the same procedure to request additional destinations.

Topical addresses

We support using +topic addressing, so you can use any number of username+topic@kernel.org addresses when doing things like subscribing to mailing lists. E.g.:

  1. username+lkml@kernel.org

They will be correctly delivered to your forwarding address.

userdoc/mail.1511454324.txt.gz · Last modified: 2017-11-23 16:25 by mricon