Notifications

E-mail notifications: SMTP, recipients, events, test mail.

Bunkerbox reports problems and important events by e-mail. All settings live in the interface under System → Notifications; there are no SMTP settings in bunkerbox.env.

Setup

1. Enter the SMTP server: host name or IP address, encryption and port.

   Encryption	Port	Use
   STARTTLS	587	Default of most providers (submission)
   TLS	465	Encrypted from the first byte ("SMTPS")
   None	25	Only for a relay in your own network, without login

   Changing the encryption suggests the usual port.

2. Sender: many providers require the sender to match the account.

3. Authentication (optional): user name and password. Authentication is only allowed with TLS or STARTTLS, so the password is never sent unencrypted.

4. Recipients: up to 20 addresses. Every notification goes to all of them in a single e-mail.

5. Switch on Send e-mail notifications and save.

6. Send test mail checks the settings right away; an error (e.g. wrong password, connection refused) is shown with the server's answer.

Verify the server certificate is on by default. Switch it off only for your own relay with a self-signed certificate – without verification an attacker in the network could pose as the mail server.

Examples:

Provider	Server	Encryption
Gmail / Google Workspace	smtp.gmail.com	STARTTLS 587, app password required
Microsoft 365	smtp.office365.com	STARTTLS 587
GMX	mail.gmx.net	STARTTLS 587
Fritz!Box as relay	IP of the Fritz!Box	depends on its settings

Password

The SMTP password is stored only in /appdata/bunkerbox/data/secrets/smtp-password (directory 700, file 600, root only). The interface only shows whether a password is stored. Saving keeps it as long as Change password is not selected; an empty new password or an empty user name removes it.

Events

The e-mail can be deselected per event. Events are raised by the respective features; the notifications decide centrally about delivery.

Event	Feature
Pool degraded, pool faulted, device errors, scrub with errors	Storage
SMART: disk failing, SMART warning, disk temperature, burn-in finished	Storage
UPS on battery (also: power restored), UPS battery low, shutdown by UPS	UPS
Backup failed	Backup
Update available (once per version)	Updates
Login from a new address (off by default)	Security

Every event has a severity (info, warning, critical) shown in the history and the e-mail.

Dedupe and rate limit

• Same event at most every … (default 360 minutes): if a problem persists (e.g. a degraded pool), it is reported again only after this time. Events are the same when they have the same key, e.g. pool-degraded:tank; a second pool is reported right away. The state survives a restart.
• At most per hour (default 20): further e-mails are suppressed and marked Suppressed in the history. Critical events are always sent.
• When delivery fails, the event is retried after 15 minutes at the earliest if it is still raised then.

History

The History tab shows the last 200 events with time, severity, subject and delivery: Sent, Failed (with the server's answer), Suppressed (hourly limit) or Not sent (switched off, not set up or event deselected). Repeats within the dedupe time do not appear again. The dashboard card shows the state, the last sent e-mail and failures of the last 24 hours.

Content of the e-mails

Subject [<host name>] <event>, text in the configured language with description, details, severity, server and time. The e-mails are plain text (UTF-8) and marked as automatically generated (Auto-Submitted: auto-generated), so out-of-office replies stay quiet.

In mock mode no e-mails are sent; they only appear in the console log. A server name ending in .invalid simulates a failure there.