Running a build on standalone.yml

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The discussion revolves around troubleshooting SMTP configuration issues when running a Discourse build using standalone.yml. ryan_olsen discovered that quotes around values in the YAML file were preventing proper reading of SMTP settings, such as DISCOURSE_SMTP_ADDRESS and DISCOURSE_SMTP_PORT. Despite setting the port to 465 and enabling SSL, the system consistently attempts to use port 25, which fails due to common ISP or VPS restrictions. NateDhaliwal suggests trying ports 2525 or 587, while Ethsim2 notes that port 25 is often blocked or blacklisted. ryan_olsen clarifies that standalone.yml is used for non-standard ports and reverse proxy setups, and that running a mail server on port 25 is generally discouraged due to widespread blacklisting. The issue appears to stem from both configuration errors and network-level restrictions.

1

Edit, i figured it out in the yaml file
the quotes around some of the entries were stopping from being read. this is what i used ,
DISCOURSE_SMTP_ADDRESS: mail.the
DISCOURSE_SMTP_PORT: 465
DISCOURSE_SMTP_USER_NAME: accounts-no-reply@
DISCOURSE_SMTP_PASSWORD: X
DISCOURSE_SMTP_ENABLE_START_TLS: false
DISCOURSE_SMTP_SSL: true
DISCOURSE_SMTP_AUTHENTICATION: login
DISCOURSE_SMTP_DOMAIN: t
DISCOURSE_DEVELOPER_EMAILS: info@
DISCOURSE_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL: accounts-no-reply@
and default in the samples
has quotes around alot of them like this
DISCOURSE_SMTP_ADDRESS: ‘mail.’

the quotes were causing the domain, email and others to not be read for some reason.

no matter what i do, i cannot get discourse to use a port for email other than 25, running on the standalone yml, ive even tried it in the yml, forcing it and no go kinda out of options at this point lol … not sure if this is a bug or not
[SMTP OVERRIDE] Configured SMTP: {:address=>“mail.”, :port=>465, :domain=>“th”, :user_name=>“accounts-no-reply@m”, :password=>“”, :authentication=>:plain, :enable_starttls_auto=>false, :ssl=>true, :openssl_verify_mode=>“none”}
Testing sending to y using mail.:25, username:accounts-no-reply@ with plain auth.
======================================== ERROR ========================================
Connection to port 25 failed.
====================================== SOLUTION =======================================
The most likely problem is that your server has outgoing SMTP traffic blocked.
If you are using a service like Mailgun or Sendgrid, try using port 2525.

i also had to force it not to use example.com as my domain as it kept forwarding me to it lol. very buggy XD

2

Hi there, what SMTP provider are you using? Also, have you tried changing ports to 2525 or 587?

4

the mail is running on a clients website server i access via cpannel, pretty sure it uses sendmail on linux. really no reason i should need port 25 for smtp i think. thats if you’re hosting your own mail service. not smtp. no matter what i change it to in the yml, it always just tries to use port 25.

5

i was told if you try to outbound over port 25 your IP is blacklisted immediately

i’m not sure is this standalone.yml part of an advanced-setup

6

Yeah the standalone.yml is for if you have to use a non standard port and proxy on your webserver. For example I have it running on 127.0.0.1:3000 and nginx proxies it to 443 because I have 6 websites running on the same server so nginx can have many websites on the same IP address. discourse_docker/samples/standalone.yml at main · discourse/discourse_docker · GitHub
Yeah running your own mail server on port 25 these days isn’t a great idea most email providers have blacklisted entire vps subnets.