Users are troubleshooting SMTP configuration issues in Discourse, particularly around port 465 (SMTPS/SSL), which was historically used for implicit TLS but is now deprecated per IETF standards. Pawel_Kosiorek initially struggled with a custom mail server on port 465 and resolved it by switching to Gmail, later moving to Mailgun due to Gmail’s sending limits. mpalmer clarifies that port 465 doesn’t use STARTTLS and recommends port 587 with STARTTLS instead. However, djr013 references RFC 8314 (Jan 2018), which actually re-recommends port 465 for implicit TLS in modern contexts. Nelson reports similar issues with port 465 and eventually switches to SparkPost for reliable outbound mail. sharkdeng seeks help with Bitnami Discourse on AWS and is advised by itsbhanusharma to contact Bitnami directly as it’s unsupported. vtulin struggles with multiple providers (Yandex, Mail.ru) until discovering that DISCOURSE_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL must match DISCOURSE_SMTP_USER_NAME for Yandex to work vtulin. Overall, the consensus leans toward using modern SMTP services like Mailgun or SparkPost over legacy port 465 setups, though RFC 8314 adds nuance to the port 465 debate.
Hi!
I went through most of the “SMTP problems” threads but still cannot solve my problem.
Ubuntu in AWS EC2, fresh Discourse installation, can’t receive confirmation email.
Current configuration:
I can telnet to smtp.motomirko.pl 465 from instance, connection is ok.
I test my mail server with setting outlook client, and there I saw the problem. When connection was set only to TLS than it was refused, when I set to SSL than connection was successful.
I’m not really sure is it helpful.
Dump from logs : Started POST "/finish-installation/register" for 87.206.151.152 at 2017-07-09 14 - Pastebin.com
Port 465 was, many years ago, SMTP over SSL/TLS – it doesn’t use STARTTLS. I say “was”, because it’s been deprecated for so many years that the IETF has deregistered smtps as a protocol. You should use either port 25 (SMTP) or port 587 (submission) and STARTTLS.
These settings work in Thunderbird. Is smtps not supported or am I doing something wrong? Maybe I need to connect to mail.mydomain.com where a valid ssl cert is installed?
So my solution was first to switch to Gmail, but when google started making me problems (limits…) than i switched to MailGun like @ljpp suggested (thanks man it’s great!). I think that’s not possible to force discourse to use 465 anymore.
Thank you. I’ve signed up for SparkPost as I don’t want to change hosts for my mail. They give you 100 mails per day without verifying your mail, 500 if you do and 10.000 if you add your credit card details. Not too bad.