permission on ssmtp.conf

[soydepr]

set up ssmtp to monitor my vpn amd for some reason it only works if permission on ssmtp.conf is 644. i would like it to be 640 ?

[pcmanbob]

The difference between you 2 sets of access rights is that other cant read the file when set to 640 , I suspect that which ever user is attempting to use ssmtp is not part of the group that owns the file, the default owner is root and the default group is root, so any other user attempting to use ssmtp will not be part of this group.

why not just leave the access rights set to 644 ( which is the default ) other can only read the file not change it in any way,

[soydepr]

because gmail password is in plain text,

running as user pi
0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root ssmtp 692 Aug 15 14:10 /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf

[pcmanbob]

It will always be readable by root or a user using sudo anyway, no matter how you set the permissions.

This is one of the reasons I set up 2 new gmail accounts for us with my pi's.