email.md

Email notifier

The Email notifier sends notifications by email. The notifications/emails sent includes information about the current request, session, and environment, and also gives a backtrace of the exception.

After an exception notification has been delivered the rack environment variable exception_notifier.delivered will be set to true.

ActionMailer configuration

For the email to be sent, there must be a default ActionMailer delivery_method setting configured. If you do not have one, you can use the following code (assuming your app server machine has sendmail). Depending on the environment you want ExceptionNotification to run in, put the following code in your config/environments/production.rb and/or config/environments/development.rb:

config.action_mailer.delivery_method = :sendmail
# Defaults to:
# config.action_mailer.sendmail_settings = {
#   location: '/usr/sbin/sendmail',
#   arguments: '-i -t'
# }
config.action_mailer.perform_deliveries = true
config.action_mailer.raise_delivery_errors = true

Options

sender_address

String, default: %("Exception Notifier" exception.notifier@example.com)

Who the message is from.

exception_recipients

String/Array of strings/Proc, default: []

Who the message is destined for, can be a string of addresses, an array of addresses, or it can be a proc that returns a string of addresses or an array of addresses. The proc will be evaluated when the mail is sent.

email_prefix

String, default: [ERROR]

The subject's prefix of the message.

sections

Array of strings, default: %w(request session environment backtrace)

By default, the notification email includes four parts: request, session, environment, and backtrace (in that order). You can customize how each of those sections are rendered by placing a partial named for that part in your app/views/exception_notifier directory (e.g., _session.rhtml). Each partial has access to the following variables:

@kontroller     # the controller that caused the error
@request        # the current request object
@exception      # the exception that was raised
@backtrace      # a sanitized version of the exception's backtrace
@data           # a hash of optional data values that were passed to the notifier
@sections       # the array of sections to include in the email

You can reorder the sections, or exclude sections completely, by using sections option. You can even add new sections that describe application-specific data--just add the section's name to the list (wherever you'd like), and define the corresponding partial. Like the following example with two new added sections:

Rails.application.config.middleware.use ExceptionNotification::Rack,
                                        email: {
                                          email_prefix: '[PREFIX] ',
                                          sender_address: %{"notifier" <notifier@example.com>},
                                          exception_recipients: %w{exceptions@example.com},
                                          sections: %w{my_section1 my_section2}
                                        }

Place your custom sections under ./app/views/exception_notifier/ with the suffix .text.erb, e.g. ./app/views/exception_notifier/_my_section1.text.erb.

If your new section requires information that isn't available by default, make sure it is made available to the email using the exception_data macro:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  before_action :log_additional_data
  ...
  protected

  def log_additional_data
    request.env['exception_notifier.exception_data'] = {
      document: @document,
      person: @person
    }
  end
  ...
end

In the above case, @document and @person would be made available to the email renderer, allowing your new section(s) to access and display them. See the existing sections defined by the plugin for examples of how to write your own.

background_sections

Array of strings, default: %w(backtrace data)

When using background notifications some variables are not available in the views, like @kontroller and @request. Thus, you may want to include different sections for background notifications:

Rails.application.config.middleware.use ExceptionNotification::Rack,
                                        email: {
                                          email_prefix: '[PREFIX] ',
                                          sender_address: %{"notifier" <notifier@example.com>},
                                          exception_recipients: %w{exceptions@example.com},
                                          background_sections: %w{my_section1 my_section2 backtrace data}
                                        }

email_headers

Hash of strings, default: {}

Additionally, you may want to set customized headers on the outcoming emails. To do so, simply use the :email_headers option:

Rails.application.config.middleware.use ExceptionNotification::Rack,
                                        email: {
                                          email_prefix: "[PREFIX] ",
                                          sender_address: %{"notifier" <notifier@example.com>},
                                          exception_recipients: %w{exceptions@example.com},
                                          email_headers: { "X-Custom-Header" => "foobar" }
                                        }

verbose_subject

Boolean, default: true

If enabled, include the exception message in the subject. Use verbose_subject: false to exclude it.

normalize_subject

Boolean, default: false

If enabled, remove numbers from subject so they thread as a single one. Use normalize_subject: true to enable it.

include_controller_and_action_names_in_subject

Boolean, default: true

If enabled, include the controller and action names in the subject. Use include_controller_and_action_names_in_subject: false to exclude them.

email_format

Symbol, default: :text

By default, ExceptionNotification sends emails in plain text, in order to sends multipart notifications (aka HTML emails) use email_format: :html.

delivery_method

Symbol, default: :smtp

By default, ExceptionNotification sends emails using the ActionMailer configuration of the application. In order to send emails by another delivery method, use the delivery_method option:

Rails.application.config.middleware.use ExceptionNotification::Rack,
                                        email: {
                                          email_prefix: '[PREFIX] ',
                                          sender_address: %{"notifier" <notifier@example.com>},
                                          exception_recipients: %w{exceptions@example.com},
                                          delivery_method: :postmark,
                                          postmark_settings: {
                                            api_key: ENV['POSTMARK_API_KEY']
                                          }
                                        }

Besides the delivery_method option, you also can customize the mailer settings by passing a hash under an option named DELIVERY_METHOD_settings. Thus, you can use override specific SMTP settings for notifications using:

Rails.application.config.middleware.use ExceptionNotification::Rack,
                                        email: {
                                          email_prefix: '[PREFIX] ',
                                          sender_address: %{"notifier" <notifier@example.com>},
                                          exception_recipients: %w{exceptions@example.com},
                                          delivery_method: :smtp,
                                          smtp_settings: {
                                            user_name: 'bob',
                                            password: 'password',
                                          }
                                        }

A complete list of smtp_settings options can be found in the ActionMailer Configuration documentation.

mailer_parent

String, default: ActionMailer::Base

The parent mailer which ExceptionNotification mailer inherit from.

deliver_with

*Symbol, default: :deliver_now

The method name to send emalis using ActionMailer.