Need help regarding SMTP and steam login

Trying to figure out how to setup a forum with discourse but having some trouble with SMTP stuff and gmail. essentually I’m trying to figure out how to disable the need for an SMTP server because I’m going to be using Steam Login instead

Disabling email verification isn’t something that’s supported. Steam doesn’t provide an email address in their SSO payload either, so you’re still going to need to verify addresses for your users.

There are lots of free options for smaller communities.

well theres this that I was planning to use https://github.com/discourse/discourse-steam-login

which all I need is just steam login. I don’t have any need for email support. especially when its not even sending out emails anyways

also I don’t really need to verify users if steam already has to verify their users so just less work my servers need to do on their end

Unless something has changed since the plugin was written, this won’t be a solution if you don’t want to send email. If not sending email is your desire, you could use Google auth, which does supply an email address.

well my issue right now is I can’t even setup the admin account because it wants to use email for it so I kinda need to disable email stuff so I can put steam login on instead.

See Creating admin using rake admin:create

I don’t get it, what is rake? an admin plugin, panel or some software?

I just want to login with steam and not have to bother with a separate server for emails

What you’re trying to do here isn’t supported.

You’re going to need to use email, or find a different product.

by chance would it be possible to suggest this as a future feature somewhere? because email is kinda a annoying verification method for users

in the meantime how do I get this thing working with smtp.gmail.com so I can finish setup

If you want to use something other than email to identify users, you’ll need to use a different forum.

No. That is a violation of their terms of service.

If you would like to create your admin account without email verification you can use the rake admin:create in the console that I linked to earlier.

The easiest solution is to use mailgun, which gives you 10K messages per month for free. It requires that you have a credit card. There are other recommended providers as well.

There is not really any other forum option worth using. IPB has exploits and is overpriced, xenforo/myBB/phpBB/mistforums/enjin all fail to meet requirements and in some cases also exceed budget, and as far as I can tell this is the only option available. If gmail smtp is out of the question here then I guess for now I’ll figure out this rake admin:create thing.

I’d also like to know where I can view TOS for discourse as at this point I’m just going to put a later project to create an edit for no SMTP server being needed

Why is gmail smtp a dealbreaker? Yesterday I linked you to a document which shows you several providers who will let you send thousands of emails for free every month.

There are thousands of sites globally using the standard install with those providers. You’re pushing back on them, but can’t cite a good reason as to why.

There aren’t any issues here we can help you with.

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my reason for cutting out emails entirely is to cutdown on services that my community has no use for and would simple be eating resources that would be better spend on something else, either for other sections of the site or for game servers we run. the only reason I’d use gmail is to get past setting up the actual site. beyond that email is pointless.

literally every user uses steam already and several parts of the site will already be using steam login anyways as its far easier to manage both security wise and account recovery wise. this also lets us easily link stuff between game servers and the website aswell. using email login would be pointless and provide no benefit.

thats why I’m trying to figure out how to get rid of the need for smtp entirely

Then pick another product. Email is central to Discourse and you won’t receive any help here with that.

can I get a tos page link? can’t find it

See /about on your site.

You can:

  1. Create your first admin user with rake admin:create

  2. Log into Discourse and configure

  3. Enable only social logins that send confirmed emails (Google, Discord, Facebook, etc)

That will give you a somewhat working Discourse. Users can enable push notifications to get a nudge when someone replies, mention, etc.

You will lose email notifications, summary emails and stuff like that, and that can range from giving you just 5% less visits to killing your site because people forget to visits back. Depends on the community type.

Good luck, and I hope it works for you.

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garrysmod community, forums used mainly for reporting issues, staff apps and feature suggestions. so sounds perfect. later on I’ll look into editing email features out completely but for now that sounds fine. just need to figure out the rake admin:create thing now and how to use it