[QUESTION] How do instances that use platforms such as Lemmy send verification, password reset, etc. e-mails? Do they use SMTP or some external service that provides an API?

joshix, 25 days ago

@Asudox my mastodon connects with smtp to a locally running sendmail which then forwards the messages signed with dkim

Asudox, 25 days ago

Is running a SMTP server a pain in the ass? Like hard to maintain?

joshix, 25 days ago

@Asudox once I set it up correctly I didn't have problems yet

But big email providers like google like to not deliver emails if you do stuff wrong. I'm not self-hosting for my personal email stuff, but I didn't want to pay or put my email pw on my server, so I had no choice (i could've created a new email account, but i didn't want to put a 3rd party in the middle)

peregus, 25 days ago

I self host a lot of services, but I will never self host my email server If any of my self hosted service would have to go down, I will work on it as soon as I can, but it coudl that it’s not that soon. If I would have self hosted my own email server at it would go down, I would have to work on it straight away because usually after 24/48 hours the other email server give up and send back the email (that was directed to me) to the sender, I could not receive airplane ticket for example and a lot of other stuff. What if that would happen when I’m on holiday in the other side of the world??? 🙈

darklamer, 25 days ago

Yes, it is.

I’ve been running my own mail server for decades now (a quite odd hobby, I know) and that’s not to be recommended for anyone who doesn’t have a particular interest in e-mail. SMTP is from the early 1980s with roots in the 1970s and has had layer upon layer bolted on since then. It’s a fantastic mess.

Theoriginalthon, 25 days ago

I’ll counter the other comments. It’s not any more difficult to maintain than any other service. What is a pain is the spam, and as I run it for a business the users. The biggest problem I have is other mail servers been incorrectly configured for SPF, DKIM and dmarc , usually it’s things like external billing platforms that have been integrated incorrectly by customers and suppliers. Spam is now starting to come though with all the proper headers for SPF and DKIM

smpl, 25 days ago

No, it’s just a service that’s running without me thinking about it.

My setup is:

• debian as system
• exim for smtp
• courier for pop3
• mariadb for accounts

But I’d like to make a point that’s not being made in any of the other comments. It does not require an SMTP server to send e-mail. All you have to do is lookup the MX DNS record of the domain, connect to that SMTP server and write a few commands fx.:

<span style="color:#323232;">EHLO senderdomain.tld
</span><span style="color:#323232;">MAIL FROM:<yourmail@yourdomain.tld> 
</span><span style="color:#323232;">RCPT TO:<recipient@recipientdomain.tld>
</span><span style="color:#323232;">DATA
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Subject: Blabla
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Bla bla
</span><span style="color:#323232;">.
</span>

originalucifer, 25 days ago

theyre routing through a standard SMTP service either hosted by their ISP or an external service theyve sighed up for to relay their mail.

i push mine out through AWS SMTP service, for example.

Thief, 25 days ago

Either a local SMTP server (less used) or an external service (more common). The SMTP is configurable but I believe most used option is ssl smtp over port 587.

TheOneCurly, 25 days ago

Yep Lemmy uses SMTP and in my experience most self-hostable platforms do as well. You can see in the Lemmy config documents how it gets set up: join-lemmy.org/docs/…/configuration.html.