Using SMTP Relay for Google Workspace (G Suite)

Neuro

Hi, just wanted to say that flarum is 1,000,000 times easier to install than other forum software. I was able to install it AND import all MyBB data in less than 20 minutes.

Everything worked with no issues whatsoever. Email worked out of the box too.

Though I would like to setup SMTP relay to allow Google Workspace gmail to handle all emails. I've already set it up in nodeBB and it works fine there.

But it doesn't seem to be working with flarum. Specifically, these are the settings I want to use:

SMTP Host: smtp-relay.gmail.com
SMTP Port: 587
Connection security: StartTLS

It seems flarum doesn't accept StartTLS connections, only ssl and tls. TLS is fine, I just want the email to be encrypted. But when I enter in those settings, it doesn't work. Flarum gives me an error when attempting to send a test email.

I have to use my username and an app password to get it to work, which defeats the purpose of using relay.

Also, the emails it sends don't appear to be encrypted.

How do I get SMTP relay to work?

katos

Have you specified your authentication settings to allow the IP address of your web server? See: https://support.google.com/a/answer/2956491?hl=en

Neuro

katos

Yup, set it up in the Google Workspace Gmail page under 'Advanced Settings', in the relay options, as stated in the instructions. I have another site running nodeBB and email via Workspace Gmail SMTP relay works perfectly and it's encrypted too.

The error appears when I send a test email, not sure how to check the log for this?

I left this post open before replying and dug around in the flarum directory and found a log file. Luckily, it had a rather descriptive error log:

flarum.ERROR: Swift_TransportException: Expected response code 250 but got code "550", with message "550-5.7.1 Invalid credentials for relay [2604:a880:400:d1::742:1]. The IP 550-5.7.1 address you've registered in your G Suite SMTP Relay service doesn't 550-5.7.1 match domain of the account this email is being sent from. If you are 550-5.7.1 trying to relay mail from a domain that isn't registered under your G 550-5.7.1 Suite account or has empty envelope-from, you must configure your 550-5.7.1 mail server either to use SMTP AUTH to identify the sending domain or 550-5.7.1 to present one of your domain names in the HELO or EHLO command. For 550-5.7.1 more information, please visit 550 5.7.1 https://support.google.com/a/answer/6140680#invalidcred j10sm310971vkp.8 - gsmtp

When I set up the relay settings I didn't include the IPv6 address, just the IPv4.

Added it to the Google Workspace settings and now email works with it. Had no errors sending a test email. It arrived encrypted too.

Thanks for the help. 😃