Configure Ubuntu 16.04 with LEMP to send emails for multiple websites

Question

I am trying to configure my droplet running Ubuntu 16.04 with LEMP stack to send emails for the websites that I host for things like user registration, order status, etc.

I host several different and unrelated websites on the same server and the problem is that every configuration I have tried limits the @domain.com that the outbound emails are shown as being from. This is problematic for me as I need the email to be from the domain relative to the website that sent the email.

Perhaps I am not asking the correct question, but I haven’t found anything on how to accomplish this besides set up a complicated and dedicated mail server for the purpose, which is beyond my needs.

Answer 1

hansen May 3, 2017

Hi @joecasanova

You need to set the From and MAILFROM - you can do that from Nginx or PHP.

In Nginx you would add the following line to you location:

location ~ \.php$ {
  fastcgi_param PHP_VALUE 'sendmail_from=mail@domain.com';
  fastcgi_param PHP_VALUE 'sendmail_path=/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -f mail@domain.com -i ';
  ... other lines like fastcgi_pass ...
}

Reply Report

joecasanova May 4, 2017

@hansen Thanks for the answer!

Now onto the next dilema, the emails being sent are being mostly labelled as spam. Is there any way to avoid this? Any DNS records I can set?

I’ve read that I should set the server hostname to the domain I’m trying to send email as, but that’s obviously not an option with the multi-domains I am hosting.
Reply Report
- hansen May 4, 2017
  
  @joecasanova
  
  You need to at least set the SPF record for each domain, which will say which servers are allowed to send mail from the domain.
  https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-an-spf-record-to-prevent-spoofing-improve-e-mail-reliability
  
  If you don’t have control over the DNS of each domain, then this might get a little difficult.
  
  Or you could setup so mail goes through a service such as AmazonSES, SendGrid, Mailgun. This will lower the spam-score, but it would still be recommended to add the SPF record to each domain.
  
  How To use an SPF Record to Prevent Spoofing & Improve E-mail Reliability
  by Pablo Carranza
  A carefully tailored SPF record will reduce the likelihood of your domain name getting fraudulently spoofed and keep your messages from getting flagged as spam before they reach your recipients.
  
  Reply Report

Answer 2

joecasanova May 4, 2017

@hansen Thanks for the answer!

Now onto the next dilema, the emails being sent are being mostly labelled as spam. Is there any way to avoid this? Any DNS records I can set?

I’ve read that I should set the server hostname to the domain I’m trying to send email as, but that’s obviously not an option with the multi-domains I am hosting.
Reply Report
- hansen May 4, 2017
  
  @joecasanova
  
  You need to at least set the SPF record for each domain, which will say which servers are allowed to send mail from the domain.
  https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-an-spf-record-to-prevent-spoofing-improve-e-mail-reliability
  
  If you don’t have control over the DNS of each domain, then this might get a little difficult.
  
  Or you could setup so mail goes through a service such as AmazonSES, SendGrid, Mailgun. This will lower the spam-score, but it would still be recommended to add the SPF record to each domain.
  
  How To use an SPF Record to Prevent Spoofing & Improve E-mail Reliability
  by Pablo Carranza
  A carefully tailored SPF record will reduce the likelihood of your domain name getting fraudulently spoofed and keep your messages from getting flagged as spam before they reach your recipients.
  
  Reply Report

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