Amazon SES questions

[GW2]

Yes, I did that previously, successfully. I have SMTP credentials (SMTP username and SMTP password) for my own personal username. But there must be a specific username that is required for Xenforo to send (authenticated) emails??

 

[GW2]

Hmmm..thinking about this...

I have Amazon SMTP credentials (SMTP Username, and SMTP password). But how do I get Xenforo plugged into SES ?.

I can send email messages through Amazon SES successfully, but each message sent creates a server error from Amazon SES (530 Authentication required).

 

[Tracy Perry]

Hmmm..thinking about this...

I have Amazon SMTP credentials (SMTP Username, and SMTP password). But how do I get Xenforo plugged into SES ?.

Once you have your key ID... you should be able to use that as the username... I think you still have to set up your user accounts in addition so that it relays it.
I showed an example of what the SMTP looks like (without my ID key shown) in an earlier post.

I'm not talking about the "verified identities" where you set up your normal email accounts.
Choose the SMTP settings, then the Manage my existing SMTP credentials.
You will probably have one listed something like ses-smtp-user.xxxxxxx if you took the default options when first setting up.
Click on that user, then choose security credentials for that user.... scroll down until you see Access Keys. If you don't already have one created, you will need to do so. That is the "username" that I use to log in via the SMTP settings in XF.

Now, whether that's the best/correct way? Not sure... all I know is it has been working great for me.

 

[GW2]

@Tracy Perry Thank you for your patience and detailed information.
Finally, it works!!
I had totally missed the part where you download the "credentials" for an user which provides the required SMTP log-on info.

IAM User Name

Smtp Username

Smtp Password

This information is required by SES for proper authentication.

Now, I need to configure a POP3 mailbox to handle bounced email (which we currently have "disabled".

 

[Tracy Perry]

Now, I need to configure a POP3 mailbox to handle bounced email (which we currently have "disabled".

I didn't do any of that for mine through SES since you have to use some other services of theirs for storage and what-not. I already had a domain listing with another SMTP provider, and simply use my main domain email on that provider and then send the transactional from the site on a sub-domain.

 

[GW2]

Yes, I plan to do the same. We have email service through our ISP that should work.

 

[GW2]

@Tracy Perry I am now out of the SES sandbox and have POP3 Port 995 SMTP set up for bounced emails and unsubscribes. Both are working fine.

I have NO bounced emails from Yahoo or AOL...which is one of the reasons I had to get away from our previous shared server email arrangement which did not support DKIM or DMARC.

And I am getting a perfect score using SES

 

[GW2]

@Tracy Perry Now, I think I am ready for that "2 ounces of a quality bourbon" you mentioned previously. 

FYI for others, the free Amazon SES tier for outgoing messages is 62,000 messages per month with limits of 50,000 messages per 24-hour period and 14 messages per second.

For the board I administer, that's far more free messages than we would ever use.

 

[GW2]

I have been using Amazon SES for a month now. SES has been generally working fine except for a couple of days last week when I had numerous server errors that XF was unable to connect to the Amazon server: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/swift_transportexception.197412/#post-1606828 I haven't had any errors since.

I am somewhat surprised to find out that the Amazon "free tier" is not exactly free. It is only free if you are using Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), and there is a cost for that service.

Here is the actual cost of SES:



For my usage, the cost is small and using SES has resolved a problem I had with bounced emails to Yahoo.com and AOL.com addresses so it is probably worth the price. However, the cost is just something that potential SES users should be aware of.

 

[FTL]

Tying it to EC2 is reasonable. Now, try looking up the cost of a "free" Amazon SSL cert...

 

[GW2]

Tying it to EC2 is reasonable. Now, try looking up the cost of a "free" Amazon SSL cert...

I don't know what the cost is for EC2, but the board I administer is for a non-profit that can't afford much. It was a BIG deal to purchase the XF software.

 

[FTL]

I don't know what the cost is for EC2, but the board I administer is for a non-profit that can't afford much. It was a BIG deal to purchase the XF software.

There's a comprehensive calculator on AWS that allows you to find out the cost of running the server. Note that it's a bit fiddly to use it, though.

The t2.Micro server is free for a year and gets you 1 CPU core, 1GB RAM and 30GB SSD storage. It's a pretty weak server, but it's enough to run my site, however, using a better one is significantly more expensive. Note that if you're trying to save on costs and need support, AWS isn't the way to go. Its main benefit is being able to build robust custom hosting to your specifications, if you can afford it. For that non-profit, you're much better going with one of the other standard hosting sites, of which you can get many recommendations on here.

If they can afford it, I can recommend the cloud version starting at $60 + taxes. There's zero hassle running your server with this and its very robust with good performance - xenforo.com runs on it. Note that it's also based on AWS, but managed by XF staff with no server access by the customer.

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