1. A way to receive emails on your Trac server

When I setup email2trac, I thought that this step was going to be the most difficult (mostly because I have no experience with email servers/services). Surprisingly, it is actually the easiest step. The trick is to install the SMTP server, but not the POP server, so that emails are received and left as files in the "drop" folder. (This is the way an email server hands off email between the two services) In a way, email2trac performs the distribution functions normally handled by POP.

Install the SMTP service via Windows Components. Open Add/Remove Programs (Start→Control Panel→Add or Remove Programs) Click "Add/ Remove Windows Components" in the left-hand bar. Use the "Details…" button to drill-in to Application Server→Internet Information Services (IIS)→SMTP Service. Check the box next to SMTP Service, click "OK", "OK", "Next", "Finish".

I don't remember if I had to configure anything for SMTP (If I did, it wasn't much). You find configuration at Start→Control Panel→Admistrative Tools→Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager. I have "Default SMTP Virtual Server" listed, with a Domain Name of "trac-server.domain.com" with Type "Local (Default)". I believe the installation automaticly creates the drop folder at C:\Inetpub\mailroot\Drop. You can see that my email2trac batch script picks up .eml files from that location.

To actually get emails to the server, you have to use the address "anyth...@…". Your exchange or other mail server should automaticly forward the emails to the server. If you want to use a different form, you will likely have to configure your mail server to forward the mail. The name before the @ can be anything; POP service usually uses this, SMTP and email2trac ignore it. A possible enhancement to email2trac would be to use the address to identify the destination environment for the ticket.