Codeigniter SMTP Email with Amazon SES

Question

I think yesterday Amazon announced SMTP support for SES (Simple Email Service).

I tried to send SMTP email with Codeigniter with no luck.

I have a verified sende

Answer 1

public function enviar_email($para, $assunto, $mensagem, $formato='html'){
            $this->CI->load->library('email');
            $config['mailtype']     = $formato;
            $config['useragent']    = 'Post Title';
            $config['protocol']     = 'smtp';
            $config['smtp_host']    = 'tls://email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com';
            $config['smtp_user']    = 'smtpuser';
            $config['smtp_pass']    = 'smtppass';
            $config['smtp_port']    = '465';
            $config['wordwrap']     = TRUE;
            $config['newline']      = "\r\n"; 

            $this->CI->email->initialize($config);

            $this->CI->email->from('Your Verified Sender Email', 'Post Title');
            $this->CI->email->to($para);
            $this->CI->email->subject($assunto);
            $this->CI->email->message($mensagem);


            if($this->CI->email->send()):
                    return TRUE;
            else:
                    $this->CI->email->print_debugger();
            endif;

    } 

Answer 2

I also needed to add the line

$config['smtp_crypto']  = 'tls';

to my config array

this is supported by CI 2.1.0 and greater

Answer 3

I got that timeout message until I added the line:-

$this->email->set_newline("\r\n");

I have my host set as ssl://email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com

Answer 4

You need to do 3 things to get CI to work with Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)

1. Need to set newline = \r\n or you will get a timeout.
2. Need to set smtp_crypto to something. (New requirement)
3. Need to make sure "from" email address is approved in Amazon SES. I made my "from" email address "no-reply@mydomain.com"

Additionally, you should set up DKIM for your "from" email address to prevent emails from getting put in spam folders. This involves going into Amazon SES -> Identity Management -> Email Addresses -> DKIM, hitting the enable button, and adding 3 DNS entries to your website's DNS.

No need to do anything special to set up SPF. The envelope domain amazonses.com passes SPF.

Finally, make sure to use "reply-to" if you want users to be able to reply to an e-mail address different from your approved "from" e-mail address.

Example working code:

$obj = &get_instance();

$config['protocol'] = 'smtp';
$config['smtp_host'] = 'email-smtp.us-west-2.amazonaws.com';
$config['smtp_user'] = 'USER';
$config['smtp_pass'] = 'PASS';
$config['smtp_port'] = '587';
$config['newline'] = "\r\n";
$config['smtp_crypto'] = 'tls';
$obj->email->initialize($config);

$obj->email->set_mailtype('html');
// don't html_escape email header variables
$obj->email->from(MV_FROM_EMAIL, $from_name);
$obj->email->reply_to($from_email, $from_name);
$obj->email->to($to);
$obj->email->subject($subject);
$obj->email->message($obj->load->view($path, html_escape($data), true));
$obj->email->send();

Answer 5

The setup that worked for me looks like this:

$test_config['protocol'] = 'smtp';
$test_config['smtp_host'] = 'ssl://email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com';
$test_config['smtp_port'] = '465';
$test_config['smtp_user'] = 'XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX';
$test_config['smtp_pass'] = 'YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY';
$test_config['newline']      = "\r\n"; 

$this->email->initialize($test_config);

$this->email->from('from@test.com', 'From at Test.com');
$this->email->to('To@Test.com');

$this->email->subject('Email Test');
$this->email->message('Testing the email class.');

$this->email->send();

The newline character must be set to "\r\n", and can bet set in the config file, if properly set as "\r\n", not '\r\n' as noted above.