Notifications in reForis⚓︎

There are two ways how Turris OS notifies what happens. The first one is the web interface (i.e., reForis), and the other one is e-mail. Internal notifications in reForis are always enabled, whereas e-mail notifications have to be explicitly enabled.

Internal notifications in reForis⚓︎

Internal notifications in reForis are emitted on all important events – such as installed or removed packages, long operations, requested reboots, or errors that occurred. Anywhere you are in reForis, new notifications are indicated by the number at the small bell in the top-right corner of the page. The displayed number in the red disc means the number of new notifications.

If you move the mouse cursor over the bell, a brief list of the notifications is displayed. You can go to the Notifications page, configure the e-mail notifications (see below), or dismiss the notifications individually or all at once.

All of the undismissed notifications are on the Notifications page.

Here you can see the notification with their details, for example, with all installed/removed packages, full error messages, and so on. Longer contents are shortened, and you can get their full versions by clicking to Show more.

E-mail notifications⚓︎

Almost nobody checks frequently whether there is something important in Turris OS. It isn’t necessary to do such checks because e-mail notifications can be configured. They are disabled by default. These notifications can be set on Administration → Notification Settings.

If you enable these notifications by checking Enable email notifications, there are several parameters to be configured:

• SMTP provider – The Turris team provides its mail infrastructure to allow simple distribution of e-mail notifications. This option (Turris) is enabled by default and you may utilize it for free and without any restrictions. If you want to use your own mail server for some reason, then simply switch to Custom. See below for details.

• Recipient’s email – This is the address to be used for e-mail notifications. It’s possible to use multiple addresses; separate them by commas.

Custom mail server⚓︎

It’s necessary to set additional parameters to use this option:

• Sender address (From) – It will be used as the address of the sender. If the delivery of a message fails, it will be returned to this address.

• Server port – This is usually 465 (SMTP with implicit TLS; this is the default), 25 (SMTP with explicit TLS or unsecured), or 587 (SMTP submission with explicit TLS or unsecured; it requires authentication). Also, you can use other port numbers in some situations.

• Security – It can be set to one of these three options:

  • SSL – Implicit TLS is the default and most secure.
  • STARTTLS – Explicit TLS; use it if your server doesn’t support implicit TLS.
  • None – Unencrypted communication, not recommended; use it only if your server doesn’t support implicit nor explicit TLS.

• Username – The user name for SMTP authentication. Leave empty if authentication won’t be used.

• Password – The password for SMTP authentication. Leave empty if you won’t use authentication.

Push notifications⚓︎

In addition to e-mail notifications, Turris OS also supports push notifications that are usually faster and can be configured on almost all mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets; computers like desktops or laptops are supported too.

We use the ntfy.sh service for push notifications. This service does not collect personal data and can be simply configured and used. On top of that, it is open-source and can be self-hosted. You can easily deploy your own notification server and run all your potentially sensitive notifications through your own infrastructure.

How to receive ntfy.sh notifications⚓︎

1. Download the application. For Android, we recommend using F-Droid, but you can download from Google Play too. For Apple iOS, download it from the App Store.
2. Run the application and press the “+” button at the bottom-right corner. Choose a name that is hard to guess (because there is no password protection). Then press the “SUBSCRIBE” button.
3. Then you are ready to receive notifications.

How to configure ntfy.sh notifications in reForis⚓︎

There are two form fields to be filled in:

• URL – Fill in the notification URL. For the standard server, it is constructed as https://ntfy.sh/<TOPIC>, where <TOPIC> is the name that you have set in the application.
• Priority – This is the notification priority; the default is High. Keep unchanged, unless you have received huge quantities of push notifications and you want to prioritize them.

General settings⚓︎

These parameters are common for all notification methods:

• Importance – By default, only notifications on required reboots are sent. It can be changed to more “verbose” options.

• Send news – If you check this checkbox, we will send you messages about new features and other essential things about the Turris project.

Test notification⚓︎

After you configure the e-mail notification mechanism, we strongly encourage you to send a test notification to ensure that all parameters have been set correctly. Simply click to Send testing notification.

Then check your mailbox for the testing notification message. If it doesn’t arrive please wait approximately 30 minutes because some antispam methods, like greylisting, can delay messages in some cases. If the message doesn’t come after this period, check your settings.