An Email Condom for your Ruby Server

sanitize_email

This gem allows you to override your mail delivery settings, globally or in a local context. It is like a Ruby encrusted condom for your email server, just in case it decides to have intercourse with other servers via sundry mail protocols.

Summary

It’s particularly helpful when you want to prevent the delivery of email (e.g. in development/test environments) or alter the to/cc/bcc (e.g. in staging or demo environments) of all email generated from your application.

• compatible with Rails >= 3.X (since v1.0.5)
• compatible with any Ruby app with a Mail handler that uses the register_interceptor API (a la ActionMailer and Mail gems)
• configure it and forget it
• little configuration required
• solves common problems in ruby web applications that use email
• provides test helpers and spec matchers to assist with testing email content delivery

Working Locally with Production Data

1. Have a production site with live data
2. Dump the live data and securely transfer it to another machine (e.g. rync -e ssh)
3. Import it into a development database
4. Test features which send out email (registration/signup, order placement, etc.)
5. Emails get sent (in real-life!) but to sanitized email recipients
6. Verify what they look like when sent
7. Iterate on email content design
8. No risk of emailing production addresses

Re-routing Email on a Staging or QA Server

Another very important use case for me is to transparently re-route email generated from a staging or QA server to an appropriate person. For example, it’s common for us to set up a staging server for a client to use to view our progress and test out new features. It’s important for any email that is generated from our web application be delivered to the client’s inbox so that they can review the content and ensure that it’s acceptable. Similarly, we set up QA instances for our own QA team and we use rails-caddy to allow each QA person to configure it specifically for them.

Testing Email from a Hot Production Server

If you install this gem on a production server (which I don’t always do), you can load up script/console and override the to/cc/bcc on all emails for the duration of your console session. This allows you to poke and prod a live production instance, and route all email to your own inbox for inspection. The best part is that this can all be accomplished without changing a single line of your application code.

Using with a test suite as an alternative to the heavy email_spec

email_spec is a great gem, with awesome rspec matchers and helpers, but it has an undeclared dependency on ActionMailer. Sad face.

SanitizeEmail comes with some lightweight RspecMatchers covering most of what email_spec can do. It will help you test email functionality. It is useful when you are creating a gem to handle email features, or are writing a simple Ruby script, and don’t want to pull in le Rails. SanitizeEmail has no dependencies. Your Mail system just needs to conform to the register_interceptor API.

Install Like a Boss

In Gemfile:

gem 'sanitize_email'

Then:

$ bundle install

Setup with Ruby

keep scrolling for Rails, but read this for a better understanding of Magic

There are four ways SanitizeEmail can be turned on; in order of precedence they are:

1. Only useful for local context. Inside a method where you will be sending an email, set SanitizeEmail.force_sanitize = true just prior to delivering it. Also useful in the console.

   SanitizeEmail.force_sanitize = true # by default it is nil
   

2. If SanitizeEmail seems to not be sanitizing you have probably not registered the interceptor. SanitizeEmail tries to do this for you. Note: If you are working in an environment that has a Mail or Mailer class that uses the register_interceptor API, the interceptor will already have been registered by SanitizeEmail (however, note lack of :engage => true):

   Mail.register_interceptor(SanitizeEmail::Bleach.new(:engage => true)) # by default :engage is nil
   

   Without :engage => true the interceptor is inactive, and will require engaging via one of the other methods.

   Mail.register_interceptor(SanitizeEmail::Bleach.new)
   

   As an example you could do the following to engage SanitizeEmail:

   SanitizeEmail::Config.configure {|config| config[:engage] = true }
   

3. If you don’t need to compute anything, then don’t use this option, go with the next option.

   SanitizeEmail::Config.configure {|config| config[:activation_proc] = Proc.new { true } } # by default :activation_proc is false
   

4. This will turn it on. Period.

   SanitizeEmail::Config.configure {|config| config[:engage] = true } # by default :engage is nil
   

Notes

Number 1, above, is the method used by the SanitizeEmail.sanitary block. If installed but not configured, sanitize_email DOES NOTHING. Until configured the defaults leave it turned off.

Troubleshooting

IMPORTANT: You may need to setup your own register_interceptor. If sanitize_email doesn’t seem to be working for you find your Mailer/Mail class and try this:

Mail.register_interceptor(SanitizeEmail::Bleach.new(:engage => true))

If that causes an error you will know why sanitize_email doesn’t work. Otherwise it will start working according to the rest of the configuration.

Setup With Rails

Create an initializer, if you are using rails, or otherwise configure:

SanitizeEmail::Config.configure do |config|
  config[:sanitized_to] =         'to@sanitize_email.org'
  config[:sanitized_cc] =         'cc@sanitize_email.org'
  config[:sanitized_bcc] =        'bcc@sanitize_email.org'
  # run/call whatever logic should turn sanitize_email on and off in this Proc:
  config[:activation_proc] =      Proc.new { %w(development test).include?(Rails.env) }
  config[:use_actual_email_prepended_to_subject] = true         # or false
  config[:use_actual_environment_prepended_to_subject] = true   # or false
  config[:use_actual_email_as_sanitized_user_name] = true       # or false
end

Keep in mind, this is ruby (and possibly rails), so you can add conditionals or utilize different environment.rb files to customize these settings on a per-environment basis.

But wait there’s more:

Let’s say you have a method in your model that you can call to test the signup email. You want to be able to test sending it to any user at any time… but you don’t want the user to ACTUALLY get the email, even in production. A dilemma, yes? Not anymore!

To override the environment based switch use force_sanitize, which is normally nil, and ignored by default. When set to true or false it will turn sanitization on or off:

  SanitizeEmail.force_sanitize = true

There are also two methods that take a block and turn SanitizeEmail on or off:

Regardless of the Config settings of SanitizeEmail you can do a local override to force unsanitary email in any environment.

  SanitizeEmail.unsanitary do
    Mail.deliver do
      from      'from@example.org'
      to        'to@example.org' # Will actually be sent to the specified address, not sanitized
      reply_to  'reply_to@example.org'
      subject   'subject'
    end
  end

Regardless of the Config settings of SanitizeEmail you can do a local override to send sanitary email in any environment. You have access to all the same configuration options in the parameter hash as you can set in the actual SanitizeEmail.configure block.

  SanitizeEmail.sanitary({:sanitized_to => 'boo@example.com'}) do # these config options are merged with the globals
    Mail.deliver do
      from      'from@example.org'
      to        'to@example.org' # Will actually be sent to the override addresses, in this case: boo@example.com
      reply_to  'reply_to@example.org'
      subject   'subject'
    end
  end

Use sanitize_email in your test suite!

rspec

In your spec_helper.rb:

require 'sanitize_email'
# rspec matchers are *not* loaded by default in sanitize_email, as it is not primarily a gem for test suites.
require 'sanitize_email/rspec_matchers'

SanitizeEmail::Config.configure do |config|
  config[:sanitized_to] =         'sanitize_email@example.org'
  config[:sanitized_cc] =         'sanitize_email@example.org'
  config[:sanitized_bcc] =        'sanitize_email@example.org'
  # run/call whatever logic should turn sanitize_email on and off in this Proc.
  # config[:activation_proc] =      Proc.new { true }
  # Since this configuration is *inside* the spec_helper, it might be assumed that we always want to sanitize.  If we don't want to it can be easily manipulated with SanitizeEmail.unsanitary and SanitizeEmail.sanitary block helpers.
  # Thus instead of using the Proc (slower) we just engage it always:
  config[:engage] = true
  config[:use_actual_email_prepended_to_subject] = true         # or false
  config[:use_actual_environment_prepended_to_subject] = true   # or false
  config[:use_actual_email_as_sanitized_user_name] = true       # or false
end

# If your mail system is not one that sanitize_email automatically configures an interceptor for (ActionMailer, Mail) then you will need to do the equivalent for whatever Mail system you are using:
# Mail.register_interceptor(SanitizeEmail::Bleach.new)

RSpec.configure do |config|
  # ...
  # From sanitize_email gem
  config.include SanitizeEmail::RspecMatchers
end

context "an email test" do
  subject { Mail.deliver(@message_hash) }
  it { should have_to "sanitize_email@example.org" }
end

have_* matchers

These will look for an email address in any of the following

:from, :to, :cc, :bcc, :subject, :reply_to

Example:

context "the subject line must have the email address sanitize_email@example.org" do
  subject { Mail.deliver(@message_hash) }
  it { should have_subject "sanitize_email@example.org" }
end

be_* matchers

These will look for a matching string in any of the following

:from, :to, :cc, :bcc, :subject, :reply_to

Example:

context "the subject line must have the string 'foobarbaz'" do
  subject { Mail.deliver(@message_hash) }
  it { should be_subject "foobarbaz" }
end

have_to_username matcher

The username in the :to field is when the :to field is formatted like this:

Peter Boling <sanitize_email@example.org>

Example:

context "the to field must have the username 'Peter Boling'" do
  subject { Mail.deliver(@message_hash) }
  it { should have_to_username "Peter Boling" }
end

non-rspec (Test::Unit, mini-test, etc)

In your setup file:

require 'sanitize_email'
# test helpers are *not* loaded by default in sanitize_email, as it is not primarily a gem for test suites.
require 'sanitize_email/test_helpers'

SanitizeEmail::Config.configure do |config|
  config[:sanitized_to] =         'sanitize_email@example.org'
  config[:sanitized_cc] =         'sanitize_email@example.org'
  config[:sanitized_bcc] =        'sanitize_email@example.org'
  # run/call whatever logic should turn sanitize_email on and off in this Proc.
  # config[:activation_proc] =      Proc.new { true }
  # Since this configuration is *inside* the spec_helper, it might be assumed that we always want to sanitize.  If we don't want to it can be easily manipulated with SanitizeEmail.unsanitary and SanitizeEmail.sanitary block helpers.
  # Thus instead of using the Proc (slower) we just engage it always:
  config[:engage] = true
  config[:use_actual_email_prepended_to_subject] = true         # or false
  config[:use_actual_environment_prepended_to_subject] = true   # or false
  config[:use_actual_email_as_sanitized_user_name] = true       # or false
end

# If your mail system is not one that sanitize_email automatically configures an interceptor for (ActionMailer, Mail) then you will need to do the equivalent for whatever Mail system you are using:
# Mail.register_interceptor(SanitizeEmail::Bleach.new)

# You need to know what to do here... somehow get the methods into rhw scope of your tests.
# Something like this maybe?
include SanitizeEmail::TestHelpers
# Look here to see what it gives you:
# https://github.com/pboling/sanitize_email/blob/master/lib/sanitize_email/test_helpers.rb

Deprecations

Sometimes things get deprecated (meaning they still work, but are noisy about it). If this happens to you, and you like your head in the sand, call this number:

SanitizeEmail::Deprecation.deprecate_in_silence = true

Authors

Peter Boling is the original author of the code, and current maintainer of both the rails 2 and rails 3 development tracks. John Trupiano did the initial gemification and some refactoring.

Contributors

See the Network View and the CHANGELOG

How you can help!

Take a look at the reek list which is the file called REEK and stat fixing things. Once you complete a change, run the tests:

bundle exec rake test:all

If the tests pass refresh the reek list:

bundle exec reek > REEK

Follow the instructions for “Contributing” below.

Contributing

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Added some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Make sure to add tests for it. This is important so I don’t break it in a future version unintentionally.
6. Create new Pull Request

Versioning

This library aims to adhere to Semantic Versioning 2.0.0. Violations of this scheme should be reported as bugs. Specifically, if a minor or patch version is released that breaks backward compatibility, a new version should be immediately released that restores compatibility. Breaking changes to the public API will only be introduced with new major versions.

As a result of this policy, you can (and should) specify a dependency on this gem using the Pessimistic Version Constraint with two digits of precision.

For example:

spec.add_dependency 'sanitize_email', '~> 1.1'

References

• Source Code
• Gem Release Announcement
• Peter’s Original Writeup
• Using sanitize_email to Preview HTML Emails Locally

Legal

• MIT License - See LICENSE file in this project
• Copyright (c) 2008-2015 Peter H. Boling of Rails Bling
• Copyright (c) 2009 John Trupiano of SmartLogic Solutions, LLC