I’ve gotten most of the NodeJS/Docker/MySQL site setup. In final levels of design review, I’m looking for suggestions on how to process a client form that needs to update a database and send an email.
Any suggestions on how to get the email sent from inside the Docker container would be appreciated.
Should find what you need covered in the documentation @jimed99
I think the reason @jimed99 asked this @Dave is because Digital Ocean Docker containers created directly through Wappler with a standard NodeJS setup do not include any mail sending facility, so unless the website you are creating has a preexisting SMTP server you can use like Google for Business or something then there is no way to send the form to the SMTP server.
I am also pretty interested how others are dealing with this, as I think many people who come from a cPanel type hosting plan, where they are used to having instant access to creating email accounts, and having access to sendmail from PHP projects without any setup are now all left wondering how to do this in NodeJS in the Docker world.
The only real docs I see covering it at least from a Digital Ocean perspective talks about installing/enabling postfix or exim as the MTA
Personally I have not really run into this issue as yet, because I have been working on fairly large company sites that all have their own mailservers setup externally, but for those smaller sites / companies that normally run on shared hosting setups, they often just expect email included with the hosting, and with cPanel that was pretty painless.
I know @Dave has pretty extensive knowledge on servers, so hopefully this clarifies the question a little more.
Cheers @psweb
Like you, we have Clients domains already available… Didn’t think of the above aspect at all. Thanks for enlightening me.
Mail is one of those things I never handle myself. I will just use an email provider with an API like Amazon SES or Sendgrid.
The reason for this is that administering and getting email right is one of the most difficult things to do. It is rarely worth the effort. Specially with the amount of filters and blacklists gmail and outlook domains have in place.
If deliverability is paramount don’t host it yourself.
Thanks Jon, I forgot that Amazon SES is not only for bulk mailing, that sounds like a far simpler solution than trying to adjust docker containers to include mail, good idea, thanks.
Very true - back the day I had setup a new CentOS web server and forgot to turn of the mail server. I got the black list notice - stop with 24 hours you’re relaying 10k emails an hour or we’re shutting down you’re IP’s. I’m hoping for the outgoing email it will be as simple as this:
I’ll have to look at keeping a shared hosting service and figure out how to use it as my email server.
Hi Paul…
Did you go with… Amazon SES ???
Nobody ever got fired for using Amazon! 
(I’ve used it before, can recommend)
Amazon SES and Postmark Mail are my top-picks
ok ok … i take your word for it… 
Did you use a API or did you use the SMTP setup as below?
I’ve used SMTP
thanks let me sign up 
If anybody wants a quick tutorial on how to setup SES
I ended up with Postmark