Welcome Emails Not Sending Using External SMTP Server (Exim)

T

Tyler Brady

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Jan 30, 2023
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DirectAdmin "transactional" emails, like the Welcome email, are not reaching the recipient.

I don't use local DNS or the local mail server (I use an external SMTP server and use Cloudflare DNS), so I used the instructions here: https://docs.directadmin.com/other-hosting-services/exim/smarthost.html to setup Exim to use my external SMTP server. After following these instructions, whenever I attempt to send the "Welcome" email, DirectAdmin will say that it was successfully sent on the front end, however, it never reaches the recipient.

I've done an email trace on my SMTP server for the account being used as the relay, however, there's no record of it ever hitting the server. I've been fighting this battle for the past couple of days, and I can't seem to figure out what's going on. Any help would be greatly appreciated:

Things I've done so far:
Performed an email trace on my SMTP server, but not record of these emails reaching it.
Re-installed/Reconfigured Exim
Confirmed Exim is running
Rebooted Server
Disabled CSF to see if it was being blocked.
Emails show in the Mail Que, but not in the Email Tracking of DA
 
Richard G said:
Probably yes. Directadmin system emails are send via php mail, so via port 25 locally. I don't know if that can be changed for system emails.
It can also be important to change your admin mail address if you have not done so yet.

How to change email address from which Directadmin sends emails

I want Directadmin to send emails from [email protected] instead of [email protected]. How can I do it?
help.poralix.com help.poralix.com
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Thanks Richard, I've already changed the system email address. Would you recommend reverting Exim back to send just send the welcome emails via php mail rather than trying to configure my SMTP server? My only concern with doing that is Google or Microsoft sending those emails to people's junk folders.
 
Tyler Brady said:
My only concern with doing that is Google or Microsoft sending those emails to people's junk folders.
Click to expand...
Maybe there is something to do about that.

Which is to create a seperate DNS in DNS management for your hostname, if that is not present already.
It is possible to use both SPF and DKIM in there for your hostname in that case.
Also (if not done yet) you can create an SSL certificate for the hostname.

This might prevent system messages arriving in the spam folders of the user.

Tyler Brady said:
reverting Exim back to send just send the welcome emails via php mail rather than trying to configure my SMTP server?
Click to expand...
I don't know, if you need a smarthost probably not. I haven't used a smarthost yet. So I don't know how to configure that to prevent system mails going to spam folder.

However, maybe @zEitEr has a clue or @mxroute who is also very good in mail configurations.
 
Richard G said:
Maybe there is something to do about that.

Which is to create a seperate DNS in DNS management for your hostname, if that is not present already.
It is possible to use both SPF and DKIM in there for your hostname in that case.
Also (if not done yet) you can create an SSL certificate for the hostname.

This might prevent system messages arriving in the spam folders of the user.


I don't know, if you need a smarthost probably not. I haven't used a smarthost yet. So I don't know how to configure that to prevent system mails going to spam folder.

However, maybe @zEitEr has a clue or @mxroute who is also very good in mail configurations.
Click to expand...
@mxroute is my email provider actually. I would love to hear if they had any input on this..
 
If you're queuing the email at one of my servers, toss me the log of it in a ticket and ask me what happened to it from there. Make sure it's a recent one so logs haven't rotated out. We'll get to the bottom of it.

Personally I don't let diradmin@ emails leave my servers because I really don't like them. I don't like their formatting, their headers, all of it just screams "Send me to the spam folder" and the idea of automated emails increasing my domain's association with a Gmail spam folder is the opposite of everything I try to do. But I'm fairly certain I'm only blocking mine, not yours. Worth looking.
 
mxroute said:
If you're queuing the email at one of my servers, toss me the log of it in a ticket and ask me what happened to it from there. Make sure it's a recent one so logs haven't rotated out. We'll get to the bottom of it.

Personally I don't let diradmin@ emails leave my servers because I really don't like them. I don't like their formatting, their headers, all of it just screams "Send me to the spam folder" and the idea of automated emails increasing my domain's association with a Gmail spam folder is the opposite of everything I try to do. But I'm fairly certain I'm only blocking mine, not yours. Worth looking.
Click to expand...
I completely understand that and see how it could be abused by people. I actually just gave up and went back to using my DA server along with all the proper DNS records to try and not make it look spammy (PTR, DKIM, DMARC, and SPF), and that seems to be working fine.

Thank you for responding though! I've been a happy mxroute customer since 2019. ;)
 
Hello,
Did you manage to find a solution for this issue? I have the same, not able to send transactional emails from directadmin while using mxroute as a relay.
 
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