If you’re not familiar with osTicket, it’s a fantastic, open source support ticket tracking system written in PHP. I’ve tried out a number of free ticketing systems over the past few months, and osTicket has been the only one to really impress me. It offers a wide variety of features but still manages to be quick and easy to install.

osTicket Email using Google SMTP Settings

Just recently, I installed osTicket 1.8 at work where we use Google Apps for Business. To send and receive mail through our domain hosted with Google Apps, a new user had to be added through the admin console. A regular Gmail account will work just as well if you don’t need your own domain. Either way, you’ll want to enable POP access in the user’s Gmail settings.

The actual settings you need to configure the email account in osTicket are somewhat buried in the Gmail help. Selecting, I want to enable POP and then Other will get you to them.

Here’s what worked for me:

Email Address: Full email address
Username: Full email address
Mail Host: pop.gmail.com
Mail Port: 995
Encryption: SSL
SMTP Host: smtp.gmail.com
Port: 587
Authentication Required: Yes

With this, I was able to send and receive messages with my designated email address easily. Even if you modify Email Address and Allow email header spoofing messages sent from osTicket will still be sent as the authenticated user. If you want to send and receive with different addresses, you’ll have to create those users separately.

osTicket Email using Google Apps SMTP Relay Service

If you’re a Google Apps customer you have more flexibility. By adding aliases to the previously created user, you can receive mail sent to any number of addresses without the need to pay for additional users.

Sending with different addresses is where things get interesting. Google Apps customers have access to a SMTP relay service which allows you to relay messages using any domain associated with your account without authenticating. There’s some minor setup involved, mostly designating the IP address or range you’re authorizing for your domains.

There are just a few settings necessary to configure an email address being relayed:

Email Address: Full email address
SMTP Host: smtp-relay.gmail.com
SMTP Port: 465
Authentication Required?: No
Allow Header Spoofing?: Yes

That’s it! With this, osTicket can send as any address on your Google Apps domains by just changing the specified Email Address. This works well as long as the address you’re sending as does not already exist.

When I attempted to have osTicket relay using an existing address, the browser would spin for approximately thirty seconds before displaying a confirmation message. While the email would be sent, that sort of delay would drive users crazy.

There’s an easy solution to this! Just go into the Gmail settings for the user you initially set up. On the Accounts there’s a link to Add another email address you own.

Enter the address you’d like to send as and continue. When you confirm your request a verification code will be emailed to the account you’re linking. Enter the code or click the link to confirm your ownership and enable sending as that email address.

With sending enabled, this address can be added very much like the first one without the special relay server:

Email Address: Full email address you just linked
Username: Full email address of mail user
Mail Host: pop.gmail.com
Mail Port: 995
Encryption: SSL
SMTP Host: smtp.gmail.com
Port: 587
Authentication Required: Yes

With these changes, mail sent by this address will appear to be from the Email Address specified at the top.

If you have questions about osTicket email configuration, post a comment below.