Docker Compose E-Mail via SMTP not working

Questions
,
1

After testing for a while I tried to setup a production instance. For adding a second user account I need a working SMTP mailer. Therefore I added some lines to the n8n environment at docker-compose.yml:

version: "3"

services:
  traefik:
    image: "traefik"
    restart: always
    command:
      - "--api=true"
      - "--api.insecure=true"
      - "--providers.docker=true"
      - "--providers.docker.exposedbydefault=false"
      - "--entrypoints.web.address=:80"
      - "--entrypoints.web.http.redirections.entryPoint.to=websecure"
      - "--entrypoints.web.http.redirections.entrypoint.scheme=https"
      - "--entrypoints.websecure.address=:443"
      - "--certificatesresolvers.mytlschallenge.acme.tlschallenge=true"
      - "--certificatesresolvers.mytlschallenge.acme.email=${SSL_EMAIL}"
      - "--certificatesresolvers.mytlschallenge.acme.storage=/letsencrypt/acme.json"
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - ${DATA_FOLDER}/letsencrypt:/letsencrypt
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro

  n8n:
    image: n8nio/n8n
    restart: always
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:5678:5678"
    labels:
      - traefik.enable=true
      - traefik.http.routers.n8n.rule=Host(`${SUBDOMAIN}.${DOMAIN_NAME}`)
      - traefik.http.routers.n8n.tls=true
      - traefik.http.routers.n8n.entrypoints=web,websecure
      - traefik.http.routers.n8n.tls.certresolver=mytlschallenge
      - traefik.http.middlewares.n8n.headers.SSLRedirect=true
      - traefik.http.middlewares.n8n.headers.STSSeconds=315360000
      - traefik.http.middlewares.n8n.headers.browserXSSFilter=true
      - traefik.http.middlewares.n8n.headers.contentTypeNosniff=true
      - traefik.http.middlewares.n8n.headers.forceSTSHeader=true
      - traefik.http.middlewares.n8n.headers.SSLHost=${DOMAIN_NAME}
      - traefik.http.middlewares.n8n.headers.STSIncludeSubdomains=true
      - traefik.http.middlewares.n8n.headers.STSPreload=true
      - traefik.http.routers.n8n.middlewares=n8n@docker
    environment:
      - N8N_BASIC_AUTH_ACTIVE=true
      - N8N_BASIC_AUTH_USER
      - N8N_BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD
      - N8N_HOST=${SUBDOMAIN}.${DOMAIN_NAME}
      - N8N_PORT=5678
      - N8N_PROTOCOL=https
      - NODE_ENV=production
      - WEBHOOK_URL=https://${SUBDOMAIN}.${DOMAIN_NAME}/
      - GENERIC_TIMEZONE=${GENERIC_TIMEZONE}
      - N8N_EMAIL_MODE
      - N8N_SMTP_HOST
      - N8N_SMTP_USER
      - N8N_SMTP_PASS
      - N8N_SMTP_SENDER
#      - N8N_SMTP_PORT
#      - N8N_SMTP_SSL


    volumes:
      - ${DATA_FOLDER}/.n8n:/home/node/.n8n
      - /local-files:/files

Additionally I added those values to the .env file including the credentials:

N8N_EMAIL_MODE=smtp
N8N_SMTP_HOST=xxxxxx.netcup.net
#N8N_SMTP_PORT=465
N8N_SMTP_USER="xxx@yyy.de"
N8N_SMTP_PASS="xxxxxxxxxx"
N8N_SMTP_SENDER=N8N
#N8N_SMTP_SSL=true

I tried it with putting the credentials directly into the docker-compose file, I tried it with putting them into the .env file, I tried it with commenting and uncommenting SSL and Port values, but in all cases I’m getting:

Could not reinvite user
Failed to send email to xxxxx@yyyyy.de

The SMTP credentials are definetely correct and working on other clients such as Thunderbird or Roundcube.

Do you have a glitch what I’m doing wrong or some ideas to log more specificly?

Thanks a lot!

2

Hi @mokkin, welcome to the community! I am sorry to hear you’re having trouble.

I have used a bunch of different email providers with n8n now and didn’t have any trouble so far, though Netcup was unfortunately not amongst them. I wonder if this could be a problem with the SSL versions used by Netcup vs. the ones support by our SMTP library.

In a first step, could you try setting N8N_SMTP_SENDER to a valid sender email for your email account?

If this doesn’t solve the problem, perhaps you can try setting N8N_SMTP_SSL=false and N8N_SMTP_PORT=587? From looking at this forum post it seems that would be the port for TLS connections on Netcup, so seems worth a shot.

3

That was the solution! I just put “N8N” there, assuming it would add the sender mail address automatically.
Since adding the address it worked immediately!

Thank you for your quick help!

4

Sweet, glad to hear it was just that :slight_smile:. Thanks for confirming!