SMTP_TRANSPORT_JSON Issue with Nodemailer and Port Configuration in Dockerized EnvKey Setup

[mario-lemes]

Description:

I am experiencing an issue with the SMTP_TRANSPORT_JSON configuration and Nodemailer within a Docker container deployment of EnvKey, using the distroless image. This problem is preventing the sending of user signup verification tokens, which is a critical blocker to proceed with user onboarding.

The SMTP_TRANSPORT_JSON environment variable is set as follows:

SMTP_TRANSPORT_JSON={"host": "xxx", "port": 25, "auth": {"user": "xxx", "pass": "xxx" }}

According to this configuration, Nodemailer should use port 25 for SMTP transport. However, it appears that Nodemailer is erroneously using port 443, leading to a "connection refused" error.

I followed the deployment instructions from here for community self-hosting EnvKey in a Docker container, but this SMTP/Nodemailer issue has stymied progress.

I would appreciate any insights or potential solutions to resolve this problem. Thank you.

[danenania]

Hi @mario-lemes this doesn't look like an SMTP issue but rather that the EnvKey client can't make a connection to your server.

Please make sure this step from the docs work for you:

12.) Make a GET request to https://your-subdomain.your-domain.com and confirm you get an API OK response.

[danenania]

Ok @mario-lemes, can you share the server logs then? In the client logs you sent, the issue is with connecting to the EnvKey server, not SMTP.

[danenania]

The EnvKey client can only make https requests, so it's not going to work until you get TLS set up.

[mario-lemes]

@danenania Oh that make sense then, is it possible to use self signed certificates?

[danenania]

Yes it's possible, though requires starting the core manually inline and passing either NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=your-cert-file for validation or else setting NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED=1 (not recommended as it fully disables cert validation--use at your own risk).

So you'd start the core inline with:

NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=... envkey core start --inline

Then open the EnvKey UI. You'll also have to watch out for the UI automatically restarting its own core process if your inline core process stops for any reason--if that happens it won't be run with the env var and cert validation will start failing.

[mario-lemes]

Thanks for your help @danenania. That worked, really appreciated the time you spent going through my problem. Have a nice day ahead!

[danenania]

That's great to hear @mario-lemes! Same to you!