Amazon SES and Xenforo

Hello everyone, I read the discussion and I seemed to understand that many have the problem that configuring the main domain with the related MX record of amazon SES can not share the functioning of incoming mail with the previous service in use (eg Exchange , Gmail, etc)

Correct?

And if instead of using to send xenforo emails to use a subdomain? Example: mail123.forumdomain.com
Would not I solve all the problems?

Could there be delivery problems?

Thank you all.
PS: up to now I have used SendGrid with dedicated ip (their configuration is like the above mentioned) but I would like to switch to SES and save a little money.
 
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If you only use SES for sending email, you don't need to touch your MX records at all.
 
Hi

I use a non existent email noreply@domain in my board and a real contact and bounce email.
The noreply email was verified in SES and I never had any problem.
Should I create a real mail box for this or just accept the email and send it to /dev/null?
 
Hi,

I have have setup my XF 1.5.23 installation with Amazon SES as descibed in this posting:


All domains and email addresses are verified in Amazon SES, DKIM is verified etc. At the moment I am still in sandbox modus. I requested a change and wait for the approval to get that limitations lifted.

But what kind of setting do I have to chnage now within the ACP of XF, so that it knows that the email has to send over SES and not SMTP of my own server? Did I miss here anything?

I know that there is an addon called [bd] mail, which lets you select Amazon SES. But I would prefer to achieve this without an additional addon, if possible.
 
o.k.,

it seems that you can create only one SMTP credentials in Amazon SES to be able to send directly over SES.

As far as I understood the documentation this means, that I put in Xenforo in the ACP/options/email those created SMTP credentials in the fields and overwrite with this my old SMTP settings of my domainname email address. As a result of this,

a) it will not use then at all my original "noreply@mydomainame.com" newsletter email address anymore and

b) in case you have several community forums with different domainnames, you have always the same Amazon sender address, which is not really what I want.

Is this assumption correct?

I would rather prefer community 1 with community 1 domainnames incl. community 1 email addresses, community 2 with community 2 domainnames incl. community 2 email addresses, etc. pp.

So maybe I have to bite the bullet and use this bd mail addon to keep my community dependent domainnames and email addresses?
 
As long as the domain or email address is approved by SES, it will use whatever email address you put into Xenforo.
 
As long as the domain or email address is approved by SES, it will use whatever email address you put into Xenforo.


But there is only one place for SMTP settings in Xenforo. Either I use my domainnames email address or the SMTP settings of Amazon.

In ACP/Options/Email Options

I have to enter an email address in the very first field ("Default Email Address") and two sections below that in "Email Transport Method", I have to enter the SMPT settings for that email address.

So what shall I put in there without overwriting my old settings?
 
Let me fomulate it differently:

If I leave in Xenforo ACP my normal domainname, email address and the SMTP data for that email address, how can Xenforo then interact with Amazon SES, if I want to send emails to all my users from within Xenforo ACP/Users/Email Users?

I tried to send an email to one Testuser within Xenforo. It was sent successfully, but Amazon SES was not involved in this. So it seems there is no "communication" between XF and Amazon SES.

Is this because I am still in sandbox mode?
 
/admin.php?options/list/emailOptions
Default Email Address: noreply@yourdomain.com
Default Email Sender Name: Your Site Name
Email Transport Method: SMTP
email-smtp.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com (or whatever smtp server is in your location)
port: 587

Authentication: User Name and Password (fill in your SES credentials)
Encryption: TLS
 
But there is only one place for SMTP settings in Xenforo. Either I use my domainnames email address or the SMTP settings of Amazon.

In ACP/Options/Email Options

I have to enter an email address in the very first field ("Default Email Address") and two sections below that in "Email Transport Method", I have to enter the SMPT settings for that email address.

So what shall I put in there without overwriting my old settings?
Your SMTP login credentials have nothing to do with whatever email address you've put in. Add the SES server and credentials and leave everything else the same.
 
/admin.php?options/list/emailOptions
Default Email Address: noreply@yourdomain.com
Default Email Sender Name: Your Site Name
Email Transport Method: SMTP
email-smtp.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com (or whatever smtp server is in your location)
port: 587

Authentication: User Name and Password (fill in your SES credentials)
Encryption: TLS

194203

Thank you! This was the solution.

Another note, in case someone tried this too:

As long as you are in sandbox mode, you can test it only with email addresses you already verified in Amazon SES as receiving email addresses. So this is one more hurdle to think about before testing.

As soon as you are out of sandbox mode, you can send it to whatever email address you want to
 
Just an update for whoever is in need of Amazon SES bounce processing. @DragonByte Tech created functionality for XF1. Hopefully they will add it to their DBT mail addon:
 
@DragonByte Tech added SES/SNS bounce processing to the aforementioned addon.
dragonbyte tech said:
this version implements special handling for Amazon SES where sometimes they return bounced email with the information in JSON in the actual message body instead of in the headers.
I have tested the functionality on xf1 for quite some time and any bounce issues encountered were addressed. It works really well for xf1. I assume the implementation is the same.
 
@DragonByte Tech added SES/SNS bounce processing to the aforementioned addon.

I have tested the functionality on xf1 for quite some time and any bounce issues encountered were addressed. It works really well for xf1. I assume the implementation is the same.

So if I buy this addon, no manual work has to be done anymore if I send my newsletters (ACP send email to users) via with Amazon SES?

What about soft and hardbouncs? Do I see somewhere why there was a bounce?
 
And is there still the advertising in each newsletter sent by dragonbyte's mail addon? Because this would be a deal breaker for me.

See here.
 
And is there still the advertising in each newsletter sent by dragonbyte's mail addon? Because this would be a deal breaker for me.

See here.

I just got the answer that the advertisement is still in his newsletter addon. So this addon is not GDPR compliant without paying the extra for the Branding Free option of US $75 on top of it
 
Since yesterday I have suddenly a problem with Amazon SES.

It sends out the emails as usual, but I do not get any bounce notifications anymore and I do not know why.

There is no spam filter on that bounce-email address. I also called the webhoster and he confirmed that there are no restrictions or blocker on their side.

I also set up a totally new bounce-email address, confirmed it, tested it out of the SNS ACP. Everything works.

But as soon as I test it from XF ACP with a "fake" email address of one testuser account, the email is officially sent successfully, but no bounce alert is coming into the inbox of the email address (I unchecked beforehand in the email setting of XF/ACP the sync with that account to examine it easier).

What else could be the reason?
 
  1. Did you setup the SNS topics for bounce and complaint?
  2. Did you attribute the topic ARN to the confirmed email address and the verified MAIL FROM domain?
  3. Did you add your gmail bounce email address as the endpoint for the topics and did you use EMAIL as the protocol?
  4. Did you set up subscriptions for bounce and complaint topics?
  5. Is 'Include Original Headers' disabled for the SNS topics?
  6. Is XF fetching the notification from gmail via smtp? Keep checking the gmail inbox.
  7. Is DKIM verified and signing enabled?
  8. Is email forwarding enabled?
 
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