I am trying to setup my own lemmy server. I used ansible.

I can access my server via my domain just fine. But emails are not working.

First i had my mail and mx records pointing to privateemail via namecheap.

Then i tried using cloudflare email routing and their mx records.

neither worked for me with error connecting.

I thought maybe using dovecot? But self hosting email is new to me

I was hoping to use namecheaps privateemail but wasn’t sure how to get it working.

The email account worked and can send / receive but Lemmy and postfix cannot communicate with it.

Now I have no Mx records as I’m not sure what I should be using I am sure I am missing something obvious but idk what

Any ideas ?

  • FrayDabson@vlemmy.netOPEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Thank you to those that helped. As I figured I was being a noob and missing a key piece. Based off the instructions and my experience I didn’t realize I need to get a free or paid smtp service and point postfix to that server. Everything seems to be working now.

  • Wander@yiffit.netEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    You don’t need MX records for outgoing mail. Mailjet works well for me and gives you 200 free daily mails.

  • FrayDabson@vlemmy.netOPEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    The errors are coming from the postfix docker that it cannot communicate with any Mx server I tried.

      • Wander@yiffit.netEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I use external smtp and have had no problems over several versions.

        OP, please share your config.hjson (redacting all sensitive info)

        • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.meEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Working perfectly fine here as well. From the backend’s perspective, a relay or an external server shouldn’t be functionally different whatsoever.

          • Morethanevil@lmy.mymte.deEnglish
            0·
            1 year ago

            Could you help me with the setup of the SMTP via lemmy.hjson?

            Mine looks like this:

            email: {
    smtp_server: "smtp.domain.de:465"
    smtp_login: "admin@domain.de"
    smtp_password: "secretpass"
    smtp_from_address: "admin@domain.de"
    tls_type: "tls"
  }
            • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.meEnglish
              2·
              1 year ago

              That really should work, I would check for potential firewall issues or something.

              Mine is basically identical to yours:

              email: {
    smtp_server: "mail.h.max-p.me:465"
    smtp_login: "lemmy@max-p.me"
    smtp_password: "REDACTED"
    smtp_from_address: "lemmy@max-p.me"
    tls_type: "tls"
  }

              It’s possible your server is slightly misconfigured and actually serve plain traffic on 465 and requires the use of the STARTTLS command.

              Can you reach your server with openssl?

              openssl s_client -connect smtp.domain.de:465

              This should end up with something like that:

                  Start Time: 1688422790
    Timeout   : 7200 (sec)
    Verify return code: 0 (ok)
    Extended master secret: no
    Max Early Data: 0
---
read R BLOCK
220 hosting.max-p.me ESMTP Postfix