How to install and start Mailhog on Ubuntu 20.04

January 14th, 2022

When working on a local version of a website it can be difficult to test email content, especially if you are using a virtual enviromnent such as Docker or Vagrant. Solutions range from setting up a local MTA using Postfix to using a third-party service such as Mailtrap or tesmail.app. Wouldn't it be great if you could install something locally that does the same?

I've got some good news for you - you can!

Mailhog is an email testing tool is very easy to install. It sets up a local SMTP server and provides a web interface for you to see the emails. Configuring web applications like Laravel or Wordpress to send emails to Mailhog is easy.

I often use Vagrant for developing on older projects and often have a need to send emails, so I use Mailhog. Here's how I install Mailhog on Ubuntu 20.04 and configure it to start on boot.

Installing

To use Mailhog we need to install 'Go'.

sudo apt-get -y install golang-go
go get github.com/mailhog/MailHog
sudo mv ~/go/bin/MailHog /usr/local/bin/Mailhog

This will install 'Go', download the Mailog binary, and then moves it to /usr/loca/bin.

Starting Mailhog automatically on boot

To run Mailhog automatically when the Vagrant box is started we need to set up a Systemd service.

[Unit]
Description=Mailhog
After=network.target

[Service]
User=vagrant 
ExecStart=/usr/bin/env /usr/local/bin/Mailhog > /dev/null 2>&1 &

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Note: this will run Mailhog as the vagrant user.

Check it all works ok:

sudo systemctl status mailhog

If good, start the service

sudo systemctl start mailhog

Now it should start on boot.

Check it by going to the vm IP on port :8025, e.g. http://192.168.56.5:8025.

Configuring Laravel to use Mailhog

To send email from Laravel to Mailhog change the MAIL settings in the .env file:

MAIL_DRIVER=smtp
MAIL_HOST=0.0.0.0
MAIL_PORT=1025
MAIL_USERNAME=null
MAIL_PASSWORD=null
MAIL_ENCRYPTION=null