Mail problems on Ghost

[bmann]

Sorry for what I am sure is an incredibly common post.

I have two Ghost installs that work, and one that doesn't.

There also seem to be some changes that aren't reflected in the docs at all -- no more confirmation emails etc when you change the from / reply to within Ghost itself, and there is no "support" email address anymore -- just a sender, and an optional reply-to address, per newsletter you have set up.

The one Ghost install that doesn't work gives me this:

[2025-05-14 04:08:13] ERROR Failed to send email. Reason: Mail command failed: 550 Authenticated user newsletter@example.com cannot send mail as newsletter@mail.example.com.
May 13 21:08:13
May 13 21:08:13 Failed to send email. Reason: Mail command failed: 550 Authenticated user newsletter@example.com cannot send mail as newsletter@mail.example.com
May 13 21:08:13 2025-05-14T04:08:13Z
May 13 21:08:13 "Please see https://ghost.org/docs/config/#mail for instructions on configuring email."
May 13 21:08:13 2025-05-14T04:08:13Z

And in the front end, "Failed to send magic link email"

I have outbound mail for this domain using a relay to use Mailgun SMTP settings, the same Mailgun that delivers the newsletters (which works fine, because it uses the API).

This user is "newsletter@mail.example.com" as the smtp login for Mailgun.

I have masquerading enabled.

Under the Cloudron Ghost app settings, I have "Use Cloudron Mail", I have "newsletter@example.com" set.

I have tried various different versions of this but right now I don't understand the error I'm getting. I tried a whole bunch of other things, all my other Ghost installs work fine with similar setups.

Part 2:

I note that only Ghost in Cloudron has this new option that I have seen:

Do not configure app's mail delivery settings
The app's mail delivery settings is left alone. You can configure it inside the app.

What does this do? What will it use to send the magic link email if I choose this option? Will this solve all my problems???

[nebulon]

If you leave the mail delivery settings to the app, then you have to configure it accordingly to your needs within Ghost. We have some more info at https://docs.cloudron.io/apps/#disable-email-configuration.

Just looking briefly over your pasted error:

Failed to send email. Reason: Mail command failed: 550 Authenticated user newsletter@example.com cannot send mail as newsletter@mail.example.com

I see @example.com and @mail.example.com is this intended with the subdomain vs no subdomain?

[jdaviescoates]

@bmann said in Mail problems on Ghost:

there is no "support" email address anymore

I do still have this in /ghost/#/settings/portal/edit in my most recent Ghost install (installed last October)

In addition to this in /ghost/#/settings/newsletters/xxxxxxxx

And both of those mailboxes set-up on Cloudron:

But just because it's the only thing you haven't mentioned (and it's caught me out a few times before) my guess is: perhaps you haven't whitelisted the IP of the server this Ghost is on over on Mailgun?

See https://app.mailgun.com/settings/ip-access-management

I just looked at my Mailgun SMTP settings too. Seems I've not edited those and they are just the default settings:

[joseph]

I assume you have seen https://docs.cloudron.io/apps/ghost/#email already?

[bmann]

@nebulon I'm asking where / how you configure email within Ghost if I disable it from Cloudron? I have mailgun set, do I just go into Terminal and set other things there?

I have example.com where the Ghost install is hosted. I have mail.example.com setup on Mailgun and it works for the two working Ghost installs.

[bmann]

@jdaviescoates

you're right, there's the hidden portal settings where support email is, seems things have been shuffled.

I'm not running inbound mailboxes for any of the Ghost installs -- the working ones also have just Mailgun setup for outbound relay and use the regular ghost.app@example.com (with mailgun as smtp relay) and they work.

Yes, I read the setup and have 2 working installs of Ghost.

Yes, I have the IP address whitelisted.

The main difference here is technically I am ghost.example.com, with example.com domain linked to Cloudron, so the emails are attempting to send from example.com.

Is the 550 error from Mailgun? Or from somewhere else?

[bmann]

bump on this -- @nebulon @jdaviescoates, what does changing the setting in the Cloudron settings for a Ghost install do?

"Do not configure app's mail delivery settings
The app's mail delivery settings is left alone. You can configure it inside the app."

I think what this means that I can just edit the config file manually?

"mail": {
    "transport": "SMTP",
    "from": "Z-Space News <newsletter@example.com>",
    "options": {
      "host": "whatever",
      "port": "2525",
      "auth": {
        "user": "newsletter@example.com",
        "pass": "somepass"
      }
    }

Going to try it! Wish me luck!

[bmann]

OK! I switched to configure it myself, and edited app/data/config.production.json and it works for me.

I'm unclear why this Ghost instance doesn't work and my others do, but I'm glad I can now toggle this switch -- it means none of the mail is going through Cloudron at all.

[james]

Hello @bmann

@bmann said in Mail problems on Ghost:

bump on this

Sorry that this topic did not get any traction for almost a week!

@bmann said in Mail problems on Ghost:

"Do not configure app's mail delivery settings
The app's mail delivery settings is left alone. You can configure it inside the app."

Where did you find this text? I could not find it in the documentation, the app package or anywhere.
Would like to know where this came from since this might be misleading.

@bmann said in Mail problems on Ghost:

Going to try it! Wish me luck!

If you want to tinker with apps, always create an app backup first or even clone the app so you can take a shotgun approach to the clone.

There are certain settings for each app that Cloudron will override on every app restart.
I know @BrutalBirdie submitted a PR yesterday about this => https://git.cloudron.io/docs/docs/-/merge_requests/75/diffs

According to the app startup https://git.cloudron.io/packages/ghost-app/-/blob/master/start.sh?ref_type=heads#L39
If CLOUDRON_MAIL_SMTP_SERVER is not empty it will set up the mail config on every app restart:

if [[ -n "${CLOUDRON_MAIL_SMTP_SERVER:-}" ]]; then
    json -I -f /app/data/config.production.json \
        -e "this.mail.from = \"${CLOUDRON_MAIL_FROM_DISPLAY_NAME:-Ghost} <${CLOUDRON_MAIL_FROM}>\"" \
        -e "this.mail.options.host = '${CLOUDRON_MAIL_SMTP_SERVER}'" \
        -e "this.mail.options.port = '${CLOUDRON_MAIL_SMTP_PORT}'" \
        -e "this.mail.options.auth.user = '${CLOUDRON_MAIL_SMTP_USERNAME}'" \
        -e "this.mail.options.auth.pass = '${CLOUDRON_MAIL_SMTP_PASSWORD}'"
fi

You may want to disable the mail config for the app to avoid this. See => https://docs.cloudron.io/apps/#disable-email-configuration