email_service

A Python library to send emails by accepting JSON data through HTTP POST requests.

Installation Instructions

1. Install Git

Linux

$ sudo apt-get install git-core

Windows

Click here for instructions on installing Git for Windows

2. Install virtualenv and pip

Linux

$ sudo apt-get install python-setuptools
$ sudo easy_install virtualenv

Windows

Click here for instructions on installing virtualenv and pip for Windows

3. Create a directory for your projects

Replace {PROJECT_HOME} with your desired directory path and name: for instance /email_service or /home/{username}/email_service)

$ mkdir /{PROJECT_HOME}
$ cd /{PROJECT_HOME}

4. Pull down the project from github

Linux

$ git clone https://github.com/darshanrp/email_service.git

Windows (use Git Bash)

$ cd /{PROJECT_HOME}
$ git clone https://github.com/darshanrp/email_service.git

5. Create virtual Python environment for the project

Linux and Windows (use Powershell or Command Prompt)

$ cd /{PROJECT_HOME}/email_service
$ virtualenv ENV

6. Activate your virtual environment

Linux

$ source ENV/bin/activate

Windows

$ cd ENV/Scripts
$ activate
$ cd /{PROJECT_HOME}/email_service

7. Install dependencies

Linux and Windows (use Powershell or Command Prompt)

(ENV)$ pip install -r requirements.txt

8. Update values in settings.py file

• Replace {MAILGUN_DOMAIN} with the appropriate mailgun domain for Mailgun account
• Update API_KEY with Mailgun api key for your account
• Update ALT_API_KEY with Mandrill api key for your account
• Update SERVER_PORT with appropriate port number
• Update TIMEZONE (Eg. 'US/Pacific' or 'US/Eastern')

9. Start webservice

Linux and Windows (use Powershell or Command Prompt)

(ENV)$ python email_service.py

Usage Instructions

In order to make a HTTP POST request to the webservice you can use the following curl command

   $ curl -i -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Accept: application/json" -X POST -d '{"to":"darshan@gwu.edu","to_name":"Darshan Pandhi","from":"noreply@uber.com","from_name":"Uber","subject":"Test message from Uber","body":"Your bill is $10."}' http://localhost:8081/email

• Delayed email delivery

  For delayed email delivery add the param send_at

  $ curl -i -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Accept: application/json" -X POST -d '{"to":"darshan@gwu.edu","to_name":"Darshan Pandhi","from":"noreply@uber.com","from_name":"Uber","subject":"Test message from Uber","body":"Your bill is $10.","send_at":"2014-06-30 10:45:00"}' http://localhost:8081/email

Note: To use curl on Windows, use curl command in git bash or follow installation instructions here

Language and Framework details

I started reading about Flask framework and I found it nimble and a perfect fit for such small applications. It has a handful of useful modules for building a standalone app. Flask is small yet powerful framwork based on Werkzeug and Jinja2. Flask immediately caught my interest and I wanted to learn and use it. Hence I chose Python and Flask for this task.