AWS EC2 Email Problems and Solutions
Saturday, February 2, 2008 at 06:15PM If, like pretty much everyone else, you are thinking of launching your web site/service in the "cloud" on Amazon Web Services? One of the things people don't often realize is that they will not be able to successfully send email from an EC2 AMI's. Why? You need a few things these days to be able to successfully send mail from a server. In most cases you need reverse DNS, SPF record, and a static IP address. At AWS you do not have a static IP or a reverse DNS entry. That is a non-starter. You will need to use an external to AWS relay server or service. Following are 3 services you might want to review depending on your needs.
http://www.authsmtp.com
Subscription service by email volume in numbers of emails, tiered pricing.
http://www.easydns.com
Email forwarding by subscription.
http://www.dnsmadeeasy.com
Email forwarding by subscription.
http://www.rackspace.com good location to build your own SMTP server if you are so inclined and install either open source (postfix) or commercial software. That choice will likely come down to your needs for tracking the data your emails generate. It's difficult, but not impossible, to mirror the functionality of a product like Port25's PowerMTA (http://www.powermta.com/) when it comes to tracking and reporting on email sending and activity.
How to choose? It's all about business needs, volume, and what technical skills you have available to you to manage your services. So, just take the time to look at your options.
Reader Comments (5)
The company we use specializes specifically in Amazon ec2 email delivery *********** (removed, not active) they are the 800lb gorilla in authenticated email relays. they have really good rates and support, for both low volume and high volume capacities... they are located in equinix facility chicago..
Paul, that URL seems to just be a advertising landing page. Are you sure that's the correct URL? For now, I'm going to star out the URL's from your comment. Don't take it personal. I just don't like having links to those kinds of landing pages.
If you get the right URL I'd like to see the service and compare the service and pricing to the ones I know.
Hmm. Lessee.
Get an elastic IP.
Run your own DNS and advertized a RDNS record and SPF.
Did I forget anything?
@Ken Amazon needs to set the Reverse DNS records on your behalf w/ information you provide because they own the IP block for the Elastic IPs. Historically, I've found them unwililng / able to do this.
This article was written about a year ago. Have AWS's policies or tools changed on this matter? If they have, happy to update the post.
-Kent
We have recently started using Elastic Email for our EC2 based CMS. It seems to be a fairly new service but it has a nice simple API for mail delivery, the delivery is fast and is priced well. They can be found at http://elasticemail.com.