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# Twisted Mail Tutorial: Building an SMTP Client from Scratch

## Introduction

This tutorial will walk you through the creation of an extremely simple SMTP client application. By the time the tutorial is complete, you will understand how to create and start a TCP client speaking the SMTP protocol, have it connect to an appropriate mail exchange server, and transmit a message for delivery.

For the majority of this tutorial, `twistd` will be used to launch the application. Near the end we will explore other possibilities for starting a Twisted application. Until then, make sure that you have `twistd` installed and conveniently accessible for use in running each of the example `.tac` files.

### SMTP Client 1

The first step is to create `smtpclient-1.tac` possible for use by `twistd` .

    from twisted.application import service

The first line of the `.tac` file imports `twisted.application.service` , a module which contains many of the basic service classes and helper functions available in Twisted. In particular, we will be using the `Application` function to create a new application service . An application service simply acts as a central object on which to store certain kinds of deployment configuration.

    application = service.Application("SMTP Client Tutorial")

The second line of the `.tac` file creates a new application service and binds it to the local name `application` . `twistd` requires this local name in each `.tac` file it runs. It uses various pieces of configuration on the object to determine its behavior. For example, `"SMTP Client Tutorial"` will be used as the name of the `.tap` file into which to serialize application state, should it be necessary to do so.

That does it for the first example. We now have enough of a `.tac` file to pass to `twistd` . If we run `smtpclient-1.tac` using the `twistd` command line:

    twistd -ny smtpclient-1.tac

we are rewarded with the following output:

    exarkun@boson:~/mail/tutorial/smtpclient$ twistd -ny smtpclient-1.tac
    18:31 EST [-] Log opened.
    18:31 EST [-] twistd 2.0.0 (/usr/bin/python2.4 2.4.1) starting up
    18:31 EST [-] reactor class: twisted.internet.selectreactor.SelectReactor
    18:31 EST [-] Loading smtpclient-1.tac...
    18:31 EST [-] Loaded.

As we expected, not much is going on. We can shutdown this server by issuing `^C` :

    18:34 EST [-] Received SIGINT, shutting down.
    18:34 EST [-] Main loop terminated.
    18:34 EST [-] Server Shut Down.
    exarkun@boson:~/mail/tutorial/smtpclient$

### SMTP Client 2

The first version of our SMTP client wasn’t very interesting. It didn’t even establish any TCP connections! The `smtpclient-2.tac` will come a little bit closer to that level of complexity. First, we need to import a few more things:

    from twisted.application import internet
    from twisted.internet import protocol

`twisted.application.internet` is another application service module. It provides services for establishing outgoing connections (as well as creating network servers, though we are not interested in those parts for the moment). `twisted.internet.protocol` provides base implementations of many of the core Twisted concepts, such as factories and protocols .

The next line of `smtpclient-2.tac` instantiates a new client factory .

    smtpClientFactory = protocol.ClientFactory()

Client factories are responsible for constructing protocol instances whenever connections are established. They may be required to create just one instance, or many instances if many different connections are established, or they may never be required to create one at all, if no connection ever manages to be established.

Now that we have a client factory, we’ll need to hook it up to the network somehow. The next line of `smtpclient-2.tac` does just that:

    smtpClientService = internet.TCPClient(None, None, smtpClientFactory)

We’ll ignore the first two arguments to `internet.TCPClient` for the moment and instead focus on the third. `TCPClient` is one of those application service classes. It creates TCP connections to a specified address and then uses its third argument, a client factory , to get a protocol instance . It then associates the TCP connection with the protocol instance and gets out of the way.

We can try to run `smtpclient-2.tac` the same way we ran `smtpclient-1.tac` , but the results might be a little disappointing:

    exarkun@boson:~/mail/tutorial/smtpclient$ twistd -ny smtpclient-2.tac
    18:55 EST [-] Log opened.
    18:55 EST [-] twistd SVN-Trunk (/usr/bin/python2.4 2.4.1) starting up
    18:55 EST [-] reactor class: twisted.internet.selectreactor.SelectReactor
    18:55 EST [-] Loading smtpclient-2.tac...
    18:55 EST [-] Loaded.
    18:55 EST [-] Starting factory <twisted.internet.protocol.ClientFactory
                  instance at 0xb791e46c>
    18:55 EST [-] Traceback (most recent call last):
              File "twisted/scripts/twistd.py", line 187, in runApp
                app.runReactorWithLogging(config, oldstdout, oldstderr)
              File "twisted/application/app.py", line 128, in runReactorWithLogging
                reactor.run()
              File "twisted/internet/posixbase.py", line 200, in run
                self.mainLoop()
              File "twisted/internet/posixbase.py", line 208, in mainLoop
                self.runUntilCurrent()
            --- <exception caught here> ---
              File "twisted/internet/base.py", line 533, in runUntilCurrent
                call.func(*call.args, **call.kw)
              File "twisted/internet/tcp.py", line 489, in resolveAddress
                if abstract.isIPAddress(self.addr[0]):
              File "twisted/internet/abstract.py", line 315, in isIPAddress
                parts = string.split(addr, '.')
              File "/usr/lib/python2.4/string.py", line 292, in split
                return s.split(sep, maxsplit)
            exceptions.AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'split'

    18:55 EST [-] Received SIGINT, shutting down.
    18:55 EST [-] Main loop terminated.
    18:55 EST [-] Server Shut Down.
    exarkun@boson:~/mail/tutorial/smtpclient$

What happened? Those first two arguments to `TCPClient` turned out to be important after all. We’ll get to them in the next example.

### SMTP Client 3

Version three of our SMTP client only changes one thing. The line from version two:

    smtpClientService = internet.TCPClient(None, None, smtpClientFactory)

has its first two arguments changed from `None` to something with a bit more meaning:

    smtpClientService = internet.TCPClient('localhost', 25, smtpClientFactory)

This directs the client to connect to localhost on port 25 . This isn’t the address we want ultimately, but it’s a good place-holder for the time being. We can run `smtpclient-3.tac` and see what this change gets us:

    exarkun@boson:~/mail/tutorial/smtpclient$ twistd -ny smtpclient-3.tac
    19:10 EST [-] Log opened.
    19:10 EST [-] twistd SVN-Trunk (/usr/bin/python2.4 2.4.1) starting up
    19:10 EST [-] reactor class: twisted.internet.selectreactor.SelectReactor
    19:10 EST [-] Loading smtpclient-3.tac...
    19:10 EST [-] Loaded.
    19:10 EST [-] Starting factory <twisted.internet.protocol.ClientFactory
                  instance at 0xb791e48c>
    19:10 EST [-] Enabling Multithreading.
    19:10 EST [Uninitialized] Traceback (most recent call last):
              File "twisted/python/log.py", line 56, in callWithLogger
                return callWithContext({"system": lp}, func, *args, **kw)
              File "twisted/python/log.py", line 41, in callWithContext
                return context.call({ILogContext: newCtx}, func, *args, **kw)
              File "twisted/python/context.py", line 52, in callWithContext
                return self.currentContext().callWithContext(ctx, func, *args, **kw)
              File "twisted/python/context.py", line 31, in callWithContext
                return func(*args,**kw)
            --- <exception caught here> ---
              File "twisted/internet/selectreactor.py", line 139, in _doReadOrWrite
                why = getattr(selectable, method)()
              File "twisted/internet/tcp.py", line 543, in doConnect
                self._connectDone()
              File "twisted/internet/tcp.py", line 546, in _connectDone
                self.protocol = self.connector.buildProtocol(self.getPeer())
              File "twisted/internet/base.py", line 641, in buildProtocol
                return self.factory.buildProtocol(addr)
              File "twisted/internet/protocol.py", line 99, in buildProtocol
                p = self.protocol()
            exceptions.TypeError: 'NoneType' object is not callable

    19:10 EST [Uninitialized] Stopping factory
              <twisted.internet.protocol.ClientFactory instance at
              0xb791e48c>
    19:10 EST [-] Received SIGINT, shutting down.
    19:10 EST [-] Main loop terminated.
    19:10 EST [-] Server Shut Down.
    exarkun@boson:~/mail/tutorial/smtpclient$

A meagre amount of progress, but the service still raises an exception. This time, it’s because we haven’t specified a protocol class for the factory to use. We’ll do that in the next example.

### SMTP Client 4

In the previous example, we ran into a problem because we hadn’t set up our client factory’s protocol attribute correctly (or at all). `ClientFactory.buildProtocol` is the method responsible for creating a protocol instance . The default implementation calls the factory’s `protocol` attribute, adds itself as an attribute named `factory` to the resulting instance, and returns it. In `smtpclient-4.tac` , we’ll correct the oversight that caused the traceback in smtpclient-3.tac:

    smtpClientFactory.protocol = protocol.Protocol

Running this version of the client, we can see the output is once again traceback free:

    exarkun@boson:~/doc/mail/tutorial/smtpclient$ twistd -ny smtpclient-4.tac
    19:29 EST [-] Log opened.
    19:29 EST [-] twistd SVN-Trunk (/usr/bin/python2.4 2.4.1) starting up
    19:29 EST [-] reactor class: twisted.internet.selectreactor.SelectReactor
    19:29 EST [-] Loading smtpclient-4.tac...
    19:29 EST [-] Loaded.
    19:29 EST [-] Starting factory <twisted.internet.protocol.ClientFactory
                  instance at 0xb791e4ac>
    19:29 EST [-] Enabling Multithreading.
    19:29 EST [-] Received SIGINT, shutting down.
    19:29 EST [Protocol,client] Stopping factory
              <twisted.internet.protocol.ClientFactory instance at
              0xb791e4ac>
    19:29 EST [-] Main loop terminated.
    19:29 EST [-] Server Shut Down.
    exarkun@boson:~/doc/mail/tutorial/smtpclient$

But what does this mean? `twisted.internet.protocol.Protocol` is the base protocol implementation. For those familiar with the classic UNIX network services, it is equivalent to the discard service. It never produces any output and it discards all its input. Not terribly useful, and certainly nothing like an SMTP client. Let’s see how we can improve this in the next example.

### SMTP Client 5

In `smtpclient-5.tac` , we will begin to use Twisted’s SMTP protocol implementation for the first time. We’ll make the obvious change, simply swapping out `twisted.internet.protocol.Protocol` in favor of `twisted.mail.smtp.ESMTPClient` . Don’t worry about the E in ESMTP . It indicates we’re actually using a newer version of the SMTP protocol. There is an `SMTPClient` in Twisted, but there’s essentially no reason to ever use it.

smtpclient-5.tac adds a new import:

    from twisted.mail import smtp

All of the mail related code in Twisted exists beneath the `twisted.mail` package. More specifically, everything having to do with the SMTP protocol implementation is defined in the `twisted.mail.smtp` module.

Next we remove a line we added in smtpclient-4.tac:

    smtpClientFactory.protocol = protocol.Protocol

And add a similar one in its place:

    smtpClientFactory.protocol = smtp.ESMTPClient

Our client factory is now using a protocol implementation which behaves as an SMTP client. What happens when we try to run this version?

    exarkun@boson:~/doc/mail/tutorial/smtpclient$ twistd -ny smtpclient-5.tac
    19:42 EST [-] Log opened.
    19:42 EST [-] twistd SVN-Trunk (/usr/bin/python2.4 2.4.1) starting up
    19:42 EST [-] reactor class: twisted.internet.selectreactor.SelectReactor
    19:42 EST [-] Loading smtpclient-5.tac...
    19:42 EST [-] Loaded.
    19:42 EST [-] Starting factory <twisted.internet.protocol.ClientFactory
                  instance at 0xb791e54c>
    19:42 EST [-] Enabling Multithreading.
    19:42 EST [Uninitialized] Traceback (most recent call last):
              File "twisted/python/log.py", line 56, in callWithLogger
                return callWithContext({"system": lp}, func, *args, **kw)
              File "twisted/python/log.py", line 41, in callWithContext
                return context.call({ILogContext: newCtx}, func, *args, **kw)
              File "twisted/python/context.py", line 52, in callWithContext
                return self.currentContext().callWithContext(ctx, func, *args, **kw)
              File "twisted/python/context.py", line 31, in callWithContext
                return func(*args,**kw)
            --- <exception caught here> ---
              File "twisted/internet/selectreactor.py", line 139, in _doReadOrWrite
                why = getattr(selectable, method)()
              File "twisted/internet/tcp.py", line 543, in doConnect
                self._connectDone()
              File "twisted/internet/tcp.py", line 546, in _connectDone
                self.protocol = self.connector.buildProtocol(self.getPeer())
              File "twisted/internet/base.py", line 641, in buildProtocol
                return self.factory.buildProtocol(addr)
              File "twisted/internet/protocol.py", line 99, in buildProtocol
                p = self.protocol()
            exceptions.TypeError: __init__() takes at least 2 arguments (1 given)

    19:42 EST [Uninitialized] Stopping factory
              <twisted.internet.protocol.ClientFactory instance at
              0xb791e54c>
    19:43 EST [-] Received SIGINT, shutting down.
    19:43 EST [-] Main loop terminated.
    19:43 EST [-] Server Shut Down.
    exarkun@boson:~/doc/mail/tutorial/smtpclient$

Oops, back to getting a traceback. This time, the default implementation of `buildProtocol` seems no longer to be sufficient. It instantiates the protocol with no arguments, but `ESMTPClient` wants at least one argument. In the next version of the client, we’ll override `buildProtocol` to fix this problem.

### SMTP Client 6

`smtpclient-6.tac` introduces a `twisted.internet.protocol.ClientFactory` subclass with an overridden `buildProtocol` method to overcome the problem encountered in the previous example.

    class SMTPClientFactory(protocol.ClientFactory):
        protocol = smtp.ESMTPClient

        def buildProtocol(self, addr):
            return self.protocol(secret=None, identity='example.com')

The overridden method does almost the same thing as the base implementation: the only change is that it passes values for two arguments to `twisted.mail.smtp.ESMTPClient` ‘s initializer. The `secret` argument is used for SMTP authentication (which we will not attempt yet). The `identity` argument is used as a to identify ourselves Another minor change to note is that the `protocol` attribute is now defined in the class definition, rather than tacked onto an instance after one is created. This means it is a class attribute, rather than an instance attribute, now, which makes no difference as far as this example is concerned. There are circumstances in which the difference is important: be sure you understand the implications of each approach when creating your own factories.

One other change is required: instead of instantiating `twisted.internet.protocol.ClientFactory` , we will now instantiate `SMTPClientFactory` :

    smtpClientFactory = SMTPClientFactory()

Running this version of the code, we observe that the code still isn’t quite traceback-free.

    exarkun@boson:~/doc/mail/tutorial/smtpclient$ twistd -ny smtpclient-6.tac
    21:17 EST [-] Log opened.
    21:17 EST [-] twistd SVN-Trunk (/usr/bin/python2.4 2.4.1) starting up
    21:17 EST [-] reactor class: twisted.internet.selectreactor.SelectReactor
    21:17 EST [-] Loading smtpclient-6.tac...
    21:17 EST [-] Loaded.
    21:17 EST [-] Starting factory <__builtin__.SMTPClientFactory instance
                  at 0xb77fd68c>
    21:17 EST [-] Enabling Multithreading.
    21:17 EST [ESMTPClient,client] Traceback (most recent call last):
              File "twisted/python/log.py", line 56, in callWithLogger
                return callWithContext({"system": lp}, func, *args, **kw)
              File "twisted/python/log.py", line 41, in callWithContext
                return context.call({ILogContext: newCtx}, func, *args, **kw)
              File "twisted/python/context.py", line 52, in callWithContext
                return self.currentContext().callWithContext(ctx, func, *args, **kw)
              File "twisted/python/context.py", line 31, in callWithContext
                return func(*args,**kw)
            --- <exception caught here> ---
              File "twisted/internet/selectreactor.py", line 139, in _doReadOrWrite
                why = getattr(selectable, method)()
              File "twisted/internet/tcp.py", line 351, in doRead
                return self.protocol.dataReceived(data)
              File "twisted/protocols/basic.py", line 221, in dataReceived
                why = self.lineReceived(line)
              File "twisted/mail/smtp.py", line 1039, in lineReceived
                why = self._okresponse(self.code,'\n'.join(self.resp))
              File "twisted/mail/smtp.py", line 1281, in esmtpState_serverConfig
                self.tryTLS(code, resp, items)
              File "twisted/mail/smtp.py", line 1294, in tryTLS
                self.authenticate(code, resp, items)
              File "twisted/mail/smtp.py", line 1343, in authenticate
                self.smtpState_from(code, resp)
              File "twisted/mail/smtp.py", line 1062, in smtpState_from
                self._from = self.getMailFrom()
              File "twisted/mail/smtp.py", line 1137, in getMailFrom
                raise NotImplementedError
            exceptions.NotImplementedError:

    21:17 EST [ESMTPClient,client] Stopping factory
              <__builtin__.SMTPClientFactory instance at 0xb77fd68c>
    21:17 EST [-] Received SIGINT, shutting down.
    21:17 EST [-] Main loop terminated.
    21:17 EST [-] Server Shut Down.
    exarkun@boson:~/doc/mail/tutorial/smtpclient$

What we have accomplished with this iteration of the example is to navigate far enough into an SMTP transaction that Twisted is now interested in calling back to application-level code to determine what its next step should be. In the next example, we’ll see how to provide that information to it.

### SMTP Client 7

SMTP Client 7 is the first version of our SMTP client which actually includes message data to transmit. For simplicity’s sake, the message is defined as part of a new class. In a useful program which sent email, message data might be pulled in from the filesystem, a database, or be generated based on user-input. `smtpclient-7.tac` , however, defines a new class, `SMTPTutorialClient` , with three class attributes (`mailFrom` , `mailTo` , and `mailData` ):

    class SMTPTutorialClient(smtp.ESMTPClient):
        mailFrom = "tutorial_sender@example.com"
        mailTo = "tutorial_recipient@example.net"
        mailData = '''\
    Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 10:14:39 -0800
    From: Tutorial Guy <tutorial_sender@example.com>
    To: Tutorial Gal <tutorial_recipient@example.net>
    Subject: Tutorate!

    Hello, how are you, goodbye.
    '''

This statically defined data is accessed later in the class definition by three of the methods which are part of the SMTPClient callback API . Twisted expects each of the three methods below to be defined and to return an object with a particular meaning. First, `getMailFrom` :

    def getMailFrom(self):
        result = self.mailFrom
        self.mailFrom = None
        return result

This method is called to determine the reverse-path , otherwise known as the envelope from , of the message. This value will be used when sending the `MAIL FROM` SMTP command. The method must return a string which conforms to the RFC 2821 definition of a reverse-path . In simpler terms, it should be a string like `"alice@example.com"` . Only one envelope from is allowed by the SMTP protocol, so it cannot be a list of strings or a comma separated list of addresses. Our implementation of `getMailFrom` does a little bit more than just return a string; we’ll get back to this in a little bit.

The next method is `getMailTo` :

    def getMailTo(self):
        return [self.mailTo]

`getMailTo` is similar to `getMailFrom` . It returns one or more RFC 2821 addresses (this time a forward-path , or envelope to ). Since SMTP allows multiple recipients, `getMailTo` returns a list of these addresses. The list must contain at least one address, and even if there is exactly one recipient, it must still be in a list.

The final callback we will define to provide information to Twisted is `getMailData` :

    def getMailData(self):
        return StringIO.StringIO(self.mailData)

This one is quite simple as well: it returns a file or a file-like object which contains the message contents. In our case, we return a `StringIO` since we already have a string containing our message. If the contents of the file returned by `getMailData` span multiple lines (as email messages often do), the lines should be `\n` delimited (as they would be when opening a text file in the `"rt"` mode): necessary newline translation will be performed by `SMTPClient` automatically.

There is one more new callback method defined in smtpclient-7.tac. This one isn’t for providing information about the messages to Twisted, but for Twisted to provide information about the success or failure of the message transmission to the application:

    def sentMail(self, code, resp, numOk, addresses, log):
        print 'Sent', numOk, 'messages'

Each of the arguments to `sentMail` provides some information about the success or failure of the message transmission transaction. `code` is the response code from the ultimate command. For successful transactions, it will be 250. For transient failures (those which should be retried), it will be between 400 and 499, inclusive. For permanent failures (this which will never work, no matter how many times you retry them), it will be between 500 and 599.

### SMTP Client 8

Thus far we have succeeded in creating a Twisted client application which starts up, connects to a (possibly) remote host, transmits some data, and disconnects. Notably missing, however, is application shutdown. Hitting ^C is fine during development, but it’s not exactly a long-term solution. Fortunately, programmatic shutdown is extremely simple. `smtpclient-8.tac` extends `sentMail` with these two lines:

    from twisted.internet import reactor
    reactor.stop()

The `stop` method of the reactor causes the main event loop to exit, allowing a Twisted server to shut down. With this version of the example, we see that the program actually terminates after sending the message, without user-intervention:

    exarkun@boson:~/doc/mail/tutorial/smtpclient$ twistd -ny smtpclient-8.tac
    19:52 EST [-] Log opened.
    19:52 EST [-] twistd SVN-Trunk (/usr/bin/python2.4 2.4.1) starting up
    19:52 EST [-] reactor class: twisted.internet.selectreactor.SelectReactor
    19:52 EST [-] Loading smtpclient-8.tac...
    19:52 EST [-] Loaded.
    19:52 EST [-] Starting factory <__builtin__.SMTPClientFactory instance
                  at 0xb791beec>
    19:52 EST [-] Enabling Multithreading.
    19:52 EST [SMTPTutorialClient,client] Sent 1 messages
    19:52 EST [SMTPTutorialClient,client] Stopping factory
              <__builtin__.SMTPClientFactory instance at 0xb791beec>
    19:52 EST [-] Main loop terminated.
    19:52 EST [-] Server Shut Down.
    exarkun@boson:~/doc/mail/tutorial/smtpclient$

### SMTP Client 9

One task remains to be completed in this tutorial SMTP client: instead of always sending mail through a well-known host, we will look up the mail exchange server for the recipient address and try to deliver the message to that host.

In `smtpclient-9.tac` , we’ll take the first step towards this feature by defining a function which returns the mail exchange host for a particular domain:

    def getMailExchange(host):
        return 'localhost'

Obviously this doesn’t return the correct mail exchange host yet (in fact, it returns the exact same host we have been using all along), but pulling out the logic for determining which host to connect to into a function like this is the first step towards our ultimate goal. Now that we have `getMailExchange` , we’ll call it when constructing our `TCPClient` service:

    smtpClientService = internet.TCPClient(
        getMailExchange('example.net'), 25, smtpClientFactory)

We’ll expand on the definition of `getMailExchange` in the next example.

### SMTP Client 10

In the previous example we defined `getMailExchange` to return a string representing the mail exchange host for a particular domain. While this was a step in the right direction, it turns out not to be a very big one. Determining the mail exchange host for a particular domain is going to involve network traffic (specifically, some DNS requests). These might take an arbitrarily large amount of time, so we need to introduce a `Deferred` to represent the result of `getMailExchange` . `smtpclient-10.tac` redefines it thusly:

    def getMailExchange(host):
        return defer.succeed('localhost')

`defer.succeed` is a function which creates a new `Deferred` which already has a result, in this case `'localhost'` . Now we need to adjust our `TCPClient` -constructing code to expect and properly handle this `Deferred` :

    def cbMailExchange(exchange):
        smtpClientFactory = SMTPClientFactory()

        smtpClientService = internet.TCPClient(exchange, 25, smtpClientFactory)
        smtpClientService.setServiceParent(application)

    getMailExchange('example.net').addCallback(cbMailExchange)

An in-depth exploration of `Deferred` s is beyond the scope of this document. For such a look, see the Deferred Reference `TCPClient` until the `Deferred` returned by `getMailExchange` fires. Once it does, we proceed normally through the creation of our `SMTPClientFactory` and `TCPClient` , as well as set the `TCPClient` ‘s service parent, just as we did in the previous examples.

### SMTP Client 11

At last we’re ready to perform the mail exchange lookup. We do this by calling on an object provided specifically for this task, `twisted.mail.relaymanager.MXCalculator` :

    def getMailExchange(host):
        def cbMX(mxRecord):
            return str(mxRecord.name)
        return relaymanager.MXCalculator().getMX(host).addCallback(cbMX)

Because `getMX` returns a `Record_MX` object rather than a string, we do a little bit of post-processing to get the results we want. We have already converted the rest of the tutorial application to expect a `Deferred` from `getMailExchange` , so no further changes are required. `smtpclient-11.tac` completes this tutorial by being able to both look up the mail exchange host for the recipient domain, connect to it, complete an SMTP transaction, report its results, and finally shut down the reactor.