Email from Webserver

XN-Matt

As per the roadmap:

Website generated emails are now sent from the local MTA rather than being forwarded to the assigned email server for the website. This does not require the email role to be installed on the web server. If you have a global smart host configured, this will be applied automatically to all web servers where the email role is not installed.

Is this going to be optional. There can be reasons why this is kept on some servers but not on others and it would be nice to have an option on a per server basis instead of having this changed and not dictated.

Adam

It's not optional at the moment. Can you tell me the usage case where you wouldn't want this? I will try to suggest a workaround.

xyzulu

Adam I don't want my websites to be able to send out any email via php. Instead, I only allow emails to go out via a Wordpress plugin (Postmarkapp api). Not allowing email, (how things are currently) is a positive for me.. it means no other email will be able to be sent without my knowledge and input.

Adam

xyzulu

This is still possible, you can just disable the postfix service.

adham

I have a question please, do you install postmark for each client's WordPress and add it on the postmark dashboard? Is that correct? thank you 🙂 xyzulu

xyzulu

Adam but right now it's disabled by default if I don't add an email role to the server. Correct?

After this release, how will I need to disable postfix?

Adam

Currently, if you have no email role anywhere on your cluster, websites cannot use PHP mail(). If the website is mapped to an email server, the website can use PHP mail().

From v11.0.0, if you prefer not to use the local MTA, you can run:

systemctl stop postfix
systemctl disable postfix

8Dweb

Adam I was reading through all forum posts to find this. I knew I had read it at some point. We do not want any local MTA on our web servers, for any reason. Everything must flow through either the cluster SMTP servers or smarthosts (if required by our customers).

I would, as others have suggested, make this something that can be toggled from Settings | Email - something like "Disable MTA for web servers" or if it needs to be a setting on individual servers, have that option under settings for each server in the servers area of the UI.

xyzulu

… and I’ll need to run that on all servers.

As the original poster suggested, it would be nice to have this as an option rather than having this changed behaviour “forced” on us.

XN-Matt

In our case, we have some servers which are on networks that cannot use port 25. I suspect the same applies to others as well.

We've adjusted the firewall rules to make this possible back to the original mail server but do not want to then have to mess around with smarthosts after this is changed.

xyzulu

adham that is correct

adham

xyzulu thanks so much. I was really confused about that.

one more question, please 🙂
what do you set up for the panel emails? ( like forgetting a password option ) ?

Also, what's your opinion about the mail role being on a separate server or with Apps or Panel?

Thanks again!

xyzulu

adham I don’t have any enhance servers with email role or a smart host set. All Wordpress emails go via postmark with the “from” email being forced to a domain that is a sender signature domain in Postmark.

adham

xyzulu I followed your advice and I'm doing that now 🙂 thank you!

XN-Matt

Very much agree. This should have been given as an option, not removal of a feature without any consideration from those now expecting it to work in a certain way.

lxix

Is it posible to revert to the original email handling setup by modifying the postfix configuration? I’d like to avoid sending emails directly from the local MTA on my web servers. Thanks!

Adam

lxix Is it posible to revert to the original email handling setup by modifying the postfix configuration? I’d like to avoid sending emails directly from the local MTA on my web servers. Thanks!

You could create an email account on the email server (maybe on a generic domain) and set it as a smart host on the web server.

XN-Matt

Not at the moment.

XN-Matt

This suggestion is not workable where you block outbound SMTP from the website container, as realistically, everyone should do.

I've raised a ticket on this but it appears this change without any prior notice or consultation has actually broken email.

If you use Cloudflare and your mail is on a different server to your the website, customers will find their mail fails all SPF checks.

The a classification does not match because it now points to Cloudflare and the mx record does not match because it is a different IP. So the SPF record has no reference to the webserver sending email.

Enhance need to make sure that if you're going to set things one way of work, you don't then change this overnight, without any warning or consultation and by doing so, actually break websites in the process that were working perfectly before.

gmakhs

XN-Matt mate enhance is not production ready, we all need to embrace that, and be patient .

Communication have been a major issue on the V12 update too, it doesn't suprise me is an issue on other sectors also .