Can you use Yahoo mail SMTP for Discourse?

installation
1

I am trying to test using Discourse on CentOS 71. I have Docker and Discourse installed…but the problem is configuring SMTP for Email for the initial registration. After installation I can bring up the web interface, congratulating me for successful installation, but it wants an Email address for registration. I have put in the settings for Yahoo mail in the app.yml file, and tried to register with my Yahoo email account. After what I think is a successful registration, I never get the email to complete registration. Is what I am trying to accomplish possible?

Thank you so much for your time.

2

Hello
Why do you need use yahoo ? And not mailgun , mandrill etc

3

Thanks for the quick reply. I am fairly, and obviously, new at all this (as well as CentOS 7). I don’t have any funding for this at the moment, and am trying to install and get this running for free so I can demo this to my boss for implementation. I don’t ‘need’ to use Yahoo, but I already had a Yahoo account.

What would you suggest? Thanks again!

Charlie

4

Mailgun are free . 10.000mails/month .
Please read this :

1 Like
5

It’s easier/quicker to use the registar to configure the email provider but it still works with DigitalOcean if this provider is a pain in the ass to use. I should add a little disclaimer to this #howto

The worst that I encounter was internet.bs, they sell domain name but if you don’t use their servers, you can’t configure anything (txt, cname) other than the dns domains. I had to use Cloudflare to link mailgun to the domain. It was fun.

2 Likes
6

Due to the nature of the environment that I am in (DOD) I cannot use any cloud based host.

7

If you can’t use a cloud based server, you can’t use yahoo for email.

Is there an smtp server on your network that you can use?

8

We do not have any control of our corporate SMTP server, and on top of that, probably could not use it as a relay. We can install Postfix. Is there a good way to configure it for Discourse? Do you think it would be possible to point it to gmail?

Thanks so much for the help.

9

In that case, unless the folks who manage your network are doing a very bad job, the corporate network restricts outgoing mail to approved SMTP servers. Most well-run networks denied outgoing mail from lan clients to external SMTP servers 15 years ago to keep infected computers from being spam-bots.

Do either of these connect?

telnet smtp.mailgun.org 25

telnet smtp.gmail.com 25

Sure. If Discourse can connect to it and it will deliver mail, that’ll work.

It’s possible, but it’s not recommended an a violation of Gmail’s Terms of Service.

10

Sorry for derailing the discussion, but are you suggesting that Yahoo is not cloud based? I don’t understand why a 3rd party email provider A is any different from a 3rd party provider B.

1 Like
11

I’d like to answer.
When you use someone’s (Yahoo/Gmail etc) server to send your emails to some third party, you’re

  1. using their (Yahoo/Gmail) resources without any benefit to them.
  2. Their reputation gets on stake, because receiver would receive these/senders email thru Google/Yahoo servers. So, suppose some spammer sends thousands of emails using google or yahoo servers, then the receivers servers would start thinking that majority of yahoo/google mails are spam. So they (the receivers ISPs) will reduce their credibility accordingly. And this will in turn reduce the reputation of G/Y servers. And in effect will affect the other legitimate users of theirs also.
  3. In contrast to this, someone, who especially provides these ‘sending’ capabilities to you, it is his job to ensure that you don’t use their resources to spam others. Also, he receives some payment from you, and thus can bear your misbehaves up to some extent.

Hope you understood, before I think of more reasons :smile: