Can I use sendmail for Django's send_mail?

Question

I am setting up a Django-based hobby site on a VPS, and I am confused with Django's email system configuration. My server is successfully sending me technical emails (e.g. from fail2ban) using sendmail. However all Django-related googling mentions postfix, e.g. in this other answer.

I wonder:

• If I can use sendmail rather than postfix;
• How I can configure Django to use my server's mailing functionality.

Any help is much appreciated.

FWIW, I am on Ubuntu 16.04 and Django 1.10.

Answer 1

It seems Django does not offer a backend for using sendmail locally by default.

I can see two options:

1. Use the SMTP backend and use "localhost" for the smtp host (this is actually the default). This only works if your mailserver is configured to accept SMTP connections, and allows relaying for connections from localhost.
2. Use a third-party backend that calls the sendmail command. A quick search turns up https://github.com/perenecabuto/django-sendmail-backend which seems like it should work.