Loopback 3 - how to use an alternate method of sending emails in datasources.json

Question

I am using Loopback 3, with it's user registration and authentication enabled.

In the system that I have to work with, they "send" emails by adding entries into an "email_queue" table. The table has fields like "to", "from", "subject", "body", "send_at_time" etc.

Then, there is a cronjob that checks for new entries each minute, and sends the email through some internal email process.

Thus, in loopback's /server/datasources.json file, I need to figure out how to connect to a mysql database, and insert a row rather than use "connector": "mail" which is what I have used in other systems.

In other words, how do I change this (and maybe other files, as needed):

{
  "emailDs": {
    "name": "emailDs",
    "connector": "mail",
    "transports": [
      {
      .... etc ...

... so that instead of sending emails for user registration, password reminders, etc. loopback inserts rows into a database table to "send" the emails.

Answer 1

You might try using the MySQL connector with an updated datasource config for the db (docs are here)-

lb datasource emailDS

and then in the datasources config -

{
  ...
  "emailDS": {
    "name": "emailDS",
    "connector": "mysql",
    "host": "example.target.com",
    "port": 3306,
    "database": "target-mysql-db",
    "username": "user",
    "password": "L00pBack"
  }
}