Digital Ocean & Mailgun Setup Issue

Developer help
1

Hi,

I’m using Ghost self-hosted on Digital Ocean. I’ve set up mailgun and it was working for a day or so. I was able to sign in as a new user and the magic links all worked when trying to sign in.

Unfortunately, it all stopped working and I’m not sure why. Does anyone have experience with DO and mailgun and could help me with what I’m missing in the settings below?

When I restart ghost it seems to work for a few min and then I get Sorry, something went wrong. Please try again.

URL: https://www.saasgaps.com
Ghost V4

{
  "url": "https://saasgaps.com",
  "server": {
    "port": 2368,
    "host": "127.0.0.1"
  },
  "database": {
    "client": "mysql",
    "connection": {
      "host": "localhost",
      "user": "ghost",
      "password": "REDACTED",
      "database": "REDACTED"
    }
  },
  "mail": {
    "transport": "SMTP",
    "options": {
      "service": "Mailgun",
      "host": "smtp.mailgun.org",
      "auth": {
        "user": "REDACTED",
        "pass": "REDACTED"
      }
    }
  },
  "logging": {
    "transports": [
      "file",
      "stdout"
    ]
  },
  "process": "systemd",
  "paths": {
    "contentPath": "/var/www/ghost/content"
  }
}

Thank you

2

Hi.

Im using mailgun as mailprovider… I dont use DC, but Linode…

Here is my config

{
  "url": "https://www.futurenode.dk",
  "server": {
    "port": SECRET,
    "host": "127.0.0.1"
  },
  "database": {
    "client": "mysql",
    "connection": {
      "host": "localhost",
      "user": "SECRET",
      "password": "SECRET",
      "database": "SECRET"
    }
  },
  "mail": {
    "from": "'FutureNode.dk' <MYMAIL@futurenode.dk>",
    "transport": "SMTP",
    "options": {
      "service": "Mailgun",
      "host": "smtp.eu.mailgun.org",
      "port": 465,
      "secureConnection": true,
      "auth": {
        "user": "SECRET",
        "pass": "SECRET"
      }
    }
  },
  "logging": {
    "transports": [
      "file",
      "stdout"
    ]
  },
  "process": "systemd",
  "paths": {
    "contentPath": "SECRET"
  }
}

Regards

Thomas

3

Using following worked for me (port: 587, requireTLS: true and secure: false).

{
  "mail": {
    "from": "John Doe <john@example.net>",
    "transport": "SMTP",
    "options": {
      "service": "Mailgun",
      "host": "smtp.eu.mailgun.org",
      "port": 587,
      "requireTLS": true,
      "secure": false,
      "auth": {
        "user": "postmaster@example.net",
        "pass": "…"
      }
    }
  }
}
4

Hi everyone, jumping in here with updates for 2025 that would have saved me a bunch of headache the past couple of days.

According to support at Digital Ocean on April 5, 2025:

We appreciate you for providing additional details in this regard and we completely understand your concern regarding SMTP port restrictions on your account. However, as of March 6, 2025, our security team has blocked SMTP ports 465 and 587 along with port 25 that was blocked previously as a preventive measure against spam and abuse.

You can find more details in our release notes here:

Droplets Release Notes :: DigitalOcean Documentation

We also realise that you have an application requirement or a business need to enable port 465 and 587 but due to our current policy we are unable to facilitate requests to remove the restriction on this port. We recommend utilising alternative ports if your application allows, such as port 2525. You can also use REST API with SendGrid, which allows you to send emails via HTTP requests instead of the traditional SMTP protocol if it is suitable for you or make use of another third-party sending service.

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image895×1038 130 KB

I was finally able to get my droplet working with the following config within mail - the port and requireTLS setting are different from what sunknudsen mentioned in Jan 2022:

{
  "mail": {
    "from": "John Doe <john@example.net>",
    "transport": "SMTP",
    "options": {
      "service": "Mailgun",
      "host": "smtp.mailgun.org",
        "port": 2525,
        "requireTLS": false,
      "secure": false,
      "auth": {
        "user": "postmaster@example.net",
        "pass": "…"
      }
    }
  }
}
3 Likes