Dreamcompute and outbound email (postfix/smtp) server?

[ckolar]

Hello. I have been happily (thanks to this community) been running a host on DreamCompute, primarily to run LimeSurvey for consulting clients. That is going great.

I have a new client and I would like to be able to use the built-in email invitations feature so need to point to an outbound email server. The most recent thread discussing this is from 2017, so I am posting to make sure I am getting updated information. The only email address will be
no-reply@thedomain so I do not need any inbound services configured.

Running Ubuntu 20.x, I have installed the postfix package:

1. Is this even possible?
2. If so, do I need to route outbound email to a particular mail exchange within DH to avoid being auto-marked as spam?
3. Assuming that this is possible, anything special I should know about DKIM setup?

Thanks in advance. ck

[habilis]

I don’t think DH has an open relay-host, so I think the only way to send email through a DH email account is via authenticated SMTP.

It is certainly possible to configure Postfix to send email via an external SMTP server with user/password authentication. I’ve never set that up with DreamCompute and DH’s SMTP servers, but I’ve done it with other systems. There are various tutorials online, this one looks reasonable:

How to configure Postfix to use an External SMTP Server - DevAnswers.co

[maiki]

If you are going to use an external SMTP server, you probably want to use an email delivery service anyhow (such as Mailgun). Which means you will use the external SMTP server settings directly in LimeSurvey, no need to use (or install) Postfix; LimeSurvey will handle it for you.