Using PHPMailer and Amazon SES

Question

I am using Amazon SES. I am trying to send an email from my PHP script using PHPMailer.

I already verified two email ids and trying to send mail from and to this mail ids. But It throws the following error.

ERROR

SERVER -> CLIENT: 220 email-smtp.amazonaws.com ESMTP SimpleEmailService-693939519  QEPGeLndQQq5vJ53VMXU
CLIENT -> SERVER: EHLO localhost
SERVER -> CLIENT: 250-email-smtp.amazonaws.com250-8BITMIME250-SIZE 10485760250- STARTTLS250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN250 Ok
CLIENT -> SERVER: STARTTLS
SERVER -> CLIENT: 220 Ready to start TLS
CLIENT -> SERVER: EHLO localhost
SERVER -> CLIENT: 250-email-smtp.amazonaws.com250-8BITMIME250-SIZE 10485760250-STARTTLS250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN250 Ok
CLIENT -> SERVER: AUTH LOGIN


SMTP NOTICE: EOF caught while checking if connected
SMTP connect() failed.
Mailer Error: SMTP connect() failed.

The following is my PHP Script:

<?php

//SMTP needs accurate times, and the PHP time zone MUST be set
//This should be done in your php.ini, but this is how to do it if you don't have   access to that
date_default_timezone_set('Etc/UTC');

require 'phpmailer/PHPMailerAutoload.php';

//Create a new PHPMailer instance
$mail = new PHPMailer();

//Tell PHPMailer to use SMTP
$mail->isSMTP();

//Enable SMTP debugging

$mail->SMTPDebug = 2;

//Ask for HTML-friendly debug output
$mail->Debugoutput = 'html';

//Set the hostname of the mail server
$mail->Host = 'email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com';

//Set the SMTP port number - 587 for authenticated TLS, a.k.a. RFC4409 SMTP submission
// I tried PORT 25, 465 too
$mail->Port = 587;

//Set the encryption system to use - ssl (deprecated) or tls
$mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';

//Whether to use SMTP authentication
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;

//Username to use for SMTP authentication - use full email address for gmail
$mail->Username = "SES Secret ID";

//Password to use for SMTP authentication
$mail->Password = "SES Secret Key";

//Set who the message is to be sent from
$mail->setFrom('[email protected]', 'sender');

//Set who the message is to be sent to
$mail->addAddress('[email protected]', 'receiver');

//Set the subject line
$mail->Subject = 'PHPMailer GMail SMTP test';


$mail->Body = 'This is a plain-text message body';
//Replace the plain text body with one created manually
$mail->AltBody = 'This is a plain-text message body';

//send the message, check for errors
if (!$mail->send()) {
    echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
} else {
    echo "Message sent!";
}
?>

I tried so many solutions I found over the internet, especially stackoverflow.

Nothing works !!

Solution 1

I managed to make it work.

$ mail-> Port = 587; 

// Username to use for SMTP authentication - use full email address for gmail 
$ mail-> Username = "Amazon SES Secret ID"; 

// Password to use for SMTP authentication 
$ mail-> Password = "Amazon SES Secret Key"; 

To create credentials visit this link: https://console.aws.amazon.com/ses/home?region=us-east-1#smtp-settings:

To send e-mail, both sending email, as the email you receive will necessarily have to be registered and checked by amazon. (https://console.aws.amazon.com/ses/home?region=us-east-1#verified-senders-mail:)

Any questions you can find me. I hope I helped

Solution 2

I had the same problem, I could only get it to work when I changed host name to start with ssl://. So this works:

$mail = new PHPMailer;

$mail->SMTPDebug = 3; // Enable verbose debug output

$mail->isSMTP();                                      // Set mailer to use SMTP
$mail->Host = 'ssl://email-smtp.us-west-2.amazonaws.com';  // Specify main and backup SMTP servers

$mail->SMTPAuth = true;                               // Enable SMTP authentication
$mail->Username = 'blah';                 // SMTP username
$mail->Password = 'blahblah';                           // SMTP password


$mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';                            // Enable TLS encryption, `ssl` also accepted
$mail->Port = 443;                  

Solution 3

To send email successfully with PHPMailer + AWS SES, I had to use these settings:

$mail->IsSMTP(true);
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;
$mail->SMTPSecure = "tls";
$mail->Host= "email-smtp.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com"; /** Edit to the region you're using **/
$mail->Port = 587;
$mail->Username = 'MYACCESSKEYID';
$mail->Password = 'MYSECRETACCESSKEY'

---

Taking it one step further, I extended the PHPMailer class to:

a. Conveniently share default values throughout my codebase; and
b. Distinguish between development and production.

It looks like this:

<?php

/* MYMAILER
 * Our own custom mailer class. Makes it easier to use default settings for all things email.
 *
 * Rules of thumb:
 * - Keep bounce rate under 5%.
 * - Keep complaint rate under 0.1%
 *
 * Tips:
 * - To check that the SPF and DKIM settings are correct, simply send an email (e.g.: to Gmail) and check its headers.
 * - Check URIBL.com and SURBL.org to check my links are not blacklisted.
 *
 * Documentation:
 * - Best practices: http://media.amazonwebservices.com/AWS_Amazon_SES_Best_Practices.pdf -- includes iSP postmaster pages for many ISPs on last page.
 * - Header fields: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/header-fields.html
 * ================================================================================= */
class MyMailer extends PHPMailer {
    public function __construct() {
        parent::__construct();


        $this->CharSet = 'UTF-8';

        if ( defined('APP_DEVELOPMENT') ) {

            /**
             * Local development. e.g.: mhsendmail + MailHog.
             **/
            $this->IsMail(); /** PHPMailer's default, but let's be explicit here. **/

        } else {

            /**
             * Production, i.e.: Amazon's SES.
             * The `Username` and `Password` SMTP credentials are AWS `Access key ID`/`Secret access key` created specifically for Amazon SES.
             *  Cf. `AWS Console › SES › SMTP Settings` to create them.
             *  Cf. `AWS Console › IAM › Users` to list the access keys (passwords only available when creating credentials.)
             *      CAREFUL! Creating new access keys for the SMTP user via IAM is technically possible but it does NOT work!
             *      Instead, use the `SES › SMTP Settings` interface.
             * Remember that any FROM email has to be verified (either via domain or via email inbox.)
             **/
            $this->IsSMTP(true);
            $this->SMTPAuth = true;
            $this->SMTPSecure = "tls";

            $url = parse_url( getenv('SMTP_URL') );
            if ( $url == FALSE ) {
                $log->error( 'Failed to parse SMTP_URL' );
            }
            $this->Host= $url['host'];
            $this->Port = $url['port'];
            $this->Username = $url['user'];
            $this->Password = $url['pass'];

        }


        /**
         * Default values common to local + SES. Constant defined in config.php
         * Used defensively only.
         * Those values would and should be overwritten by the code.
         * Apparently, the order matters (TBC.)
         **/
        $this->AddReplyTo( MAIL_DEFAULT_ADDREPLYTO );
        $this->FromName = MAIL_DEFAULT_FROMNAME;
        $this->From = MAIL_DEFAULT_FROM;
    }
}

?>

I hope this helps.

Comments

[leiavoia]

FYI: When used on an EC2 instance inside an Amazon VPC, adding ssl:// actually causes it NOT to work.

[Vael Victus]

This works, just make sure your port is 443 and 'tls'.