snails 2.0

minimal smtpd handler

Sometimes you want to write a dumb email handler.

Good for: low volume, minimal parsing, interacting with legacy email-based systems

Bad for: high volume, production use, 100% RFC compliance

Requires Python 3.7+

pip install snails

Usage

import snails


def handle(msg: snails.Message) -> None:
    print(f"To: {msg['to']}")
    print(f"From: {msg['from']}")
    print("Subject: {msg['subject']}")
    for p in msg.get_payload():
        print(p.get_payload(decode=True))

# run and block until ctrl + c
snails.serve(handle, "127.0.0.1", 10025)

# or, call start/stop yourself
mailbox = snails.Mailbox(handle, "127.0.0.1", 10025)
mailbox.start()

Enable TLS

import ssl
import snails


def handle(msg: bytes) -> None:
    ...  # TODO


ssl_context = ssl.create_default_context(ssl.Purpose.CLIENT_AUTH)
ssl_context.load_cert_chain("cert.pem", "key.pem")

mailbox = snails.Mailbox(handle, "::", 25, ssl_context=ssl_context)

Message Parsing

When a new request arrives, snails will pass the envelope to a parser function. You can either provide this parser yourself, or let snails infer the parser based on your handler’s type annotations.

Snails provides parsers for the following types:

• bytes
• aiosmtpd.smtp.Envelope (aliased to snails.Envelope)
• email.message.Message (aliased to snails.Message)

Most of the time it’s enough to use an annotation:

def handle(x: bytes):
    with open("out.log", "wb") as f:
        f.write(x)

def handle(x: snails.Envelope):
    with open("out.log", "wb") as f:
        f.write(x.content)

def handle(x: snails.Message):
    with open("out.log", "wb") as f:
        f.write(x.as_bytes())

You can also define your own parser:

def parse(e: snails.Envelope) -> dict:
    as_str = e.content.decode()
    return {}  # TODO your parsing


def handle(x: dict):
    ...  # TODO use the dict parsed above


mailbox = snails.Mailbox(handle, "::", 25, parser=parse)

Async Mailbox

Your handler and parser can both be async functions; by default snails wraps all synchronous functions.

import snails

async def parse(e: snails.Envelope) -> dict:
    as_str = e.content.decode()
    return {}  # TODO your parsing


async def handle(x: dict):
    res = await some_db_call(...)


mailbox = snails.Mailbox(handle, "::", 25, parser=parse)

Other

• You can return a string from your handler such as "250 OK" or the built-in snails.SMTP_250.
• Instead of snails.serve use Mailbox.start and Mailbox.stop
• Call snails.serve with cleanup_at_exit=True to ensure Mailbox.stop is called when the interpreter is shutting down (enabled by default)
• Call snails.serve with block=True to block execution after calling Mailbox.start (enabled by default). You can stop the server by sending SIGINT or Ctrl + C.