# Use DreamHost SMTP for outgoing email
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-dreamhost-smtp-for-outgoing-email/44074
**Category:** Sysadmins
**Tags:** how-to
**Created:** [May 11, 2016, 7:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-dreamhost-smtp-for-outgoing-email/44074 "2016-05-11T19:16:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Scriblet](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Scriblet)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2016, 7:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-dreamhost-smtp-for-outgoing-email/44074/1 "2016-05-11T19:16:02Z")
Hi guys, I’m a noob, but I just got Discourse (running on Digital Ocean) to use Dreamhost SMTP for sending mail and what I figured out SHOULD help you guys with things beyond Dreamhost.
You got to figure out your homie server, instead of putting [mail.yourdomain.com](http://mail.yourdomain.com) you have to put
one of the homie servers such as:
[sub3.mail.dreamhost.com](http://sub3.mail.dreamhost.com)
[sub4.mail.dreamhost.com](http://sub4.mail.dreamhost.com)
[sub5.mail.dreamhost.com](http://sub5.mail.dreamhost.com)
[homie.mail.dreamhost.com](http://homie.mail.dreamhost.com)
To figure out which one of these servers are your homies, check out:
[http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Certificate\_Domain\_Mismatch\_Error](http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Certificate_Domain_Mismatch_Error)
See, when I check webmail at my domain I get this:
What that means, is that there’s a conflict between the SSL certificate because the dreamhost doesn’t assign individual certificates for your specific website, but instead uses their certificate from [dreamhost.com](http://dreamhost.com)
In the admin panel for discourse it shows up like this:
Argument: {“type”=\>“signup”, “user\_id”=\>1, “email\_token”=\>“9067a99d7782276fb747e3c5041ca6e0”, “current\_site\_id”=\>“default”}
Error: Jobs::HandledExceptionWrapper: Wrapped OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError: hostname “[mailyourdomainhere.com](http://mailyourdomainhere.com)” does not match the server certificate
To fix this, configure your discourse app.yml like this
Since the bottom level domain is now dreahost, the SSL certificate checks out and your e-mails will start going through!
Things I also tried that probably didn’t matter:
I changed the notification e-mail in discourse to [noreply@mydomain.org](mailto:noreply@mydomain.org)
I created a [noreply@mydomain.org](mailto:noreply@mydomain.org) on dreamhost
I hope someone found this helpful and it will likely fix other SMTP issues with other sites! Feel free to correct anything I said, I just started using linux yesterday to get this all to work and have literally had to google how to move around in putty/linux.
---
### Author:  [@DeanMarkTaylor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/DeanMarkTaylor)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2016, 8:01pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-dreamhost-smtp-for-outgoing-email/44074/2 "2016-05-12T20:01:44Z")
Although I can’t recommend it for security reasons…
If you have no option like this “finding an alternative hostname with your mail provider” you can use this setting:
```plaintext
DISCOURSE_SMTP_OPENSSL_VERIFY_MODE: 'none'
```
This causing Discourse to ignore certificate checks for SMTP.
This would mean the communication between your Discourse server and your outgoing mail server could be intercepted, giving the attacker (or Government middle-man) access to sensitive data (password reset links etc).
**However I would recommend finding an alternative mail host before using this.**
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### Author:  [@Scriblet](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Scriblet)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2016, 8:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-dreamhost-smtp-for-outgoing-email/44074/3 "2016-05-12T20:16:35Z")
Quick question, should I test out port 465 for better security? I believe Dreamhost supports both. I just haven’t because 587 worked and I was absolutely exhausted after 18 hours of coding. I don’t want to take my server down now as people are about to get off work and will be signing up soon. Going to wait until the middle of the night to edit this more.
---
### Author:  [@DeanMarkTaylor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/DeanMarkTaylor)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2016, 8:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-dreamhost-smtp-for-outgoing-email/44074/4 "2016-05-12T20:33:37Z")
I don’t see a need to change it - port `587` is default mail submission port, `465` is somewhat legacy:
[http://blog.mailgun.com/25-465-587-what-port-should-i-use/](http://blog.mailgun.com/25-465-587-what-port-should-i-use/)
---
### Author:  [@Scriblet](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Scriblet)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2016, 8:45pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-dreamhost-smtp-for-outgoing-email/44074/5 "2016-05-12T20:45:00Z")
Got it. So I’m using TLS/SSL of some kind already for my SMTP e-mails?
#DISCOURSE\_SMTP\_ENABLE\_START\_TLS: true # (optinal, default true)
I assumed by this wording that even with this commented out, it’s defaulting the using TLS and you’d only uncomment it if you wanted to set it to false?
Super beginner question, but I taught myself all this two days ago and my programming knowledge come from some minor stuff in college 6 years ago using C# with XNA framework to make xbox games.
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### Author:  [@DeanMarkTaylor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/DeanMarkTaylor)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2016, 8:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-dreamhost-smtp-for-outgoing-email/44074/6 "2016-05-12T20:57:32Z")
> [@Scriblet](#):
>
> So I’m using TLS/SSL of some kind already for my SMTP?
>
> …
>
> you’d only uncomment it if you wanted to set it to false?
Yes and really yes - but people unomments things, so maybe that’s the reason it’s set to true
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### Author:  [@Scriblet](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Scriblet)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2016, 9:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-dreamhost-smtp-for-outgoing-email/44074/7 "2016-05-12T21:06:01Z")
I figured something like that had to be true. I just have also learned that frequently Captain Obvious corrects me when everyone else seems to get it O.o
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### Author:  [@Anthony\_Tuttle](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Anthony_Tuttle)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2024, 8:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-dreamhost-smtp-for-outgoing-email/44074/9 "2024-08-07T20:54:17Z")
I use mailpoet, but send via stmp.dreamhost. Is there a way to set up read receipts for the emails I send. If I send from Webmail it tells me how, but that doesn’t seem to work even thought I am using one of my dreamhost web email accounts to send from?