I’m having trouble setting up Gmail’s SMTP service to handle outgoing emails for my website domain. I want to route all emails through smtp.gmail.com but I keep running into connection issues.
When I attempt to send a test message, the system tries to connect to localhost instead of the Gmail servers. The error shows it’s attempting connection to 127.0.0.1 and getting refused. I also notice a hostname qualification warning.
Here’s what happens when I test:
admin@webserver:/mail/config# echo "Testing email delivery" | mail -s "Test Message" [email protected]
Output shows:
Warning: hostname (webserver) not fully qualified
[email protected]... Attempting connection to [127.0.0.1] via local relay...
[email protected]... Delivery failed: Connection denied by [127.0.0.1]
It seems like the mail system isn’t recognizing my Gmail SMTP configuration. Has anyone successfully set this up before? What configuration steps might I be missing to properly route outbound mail through Gmail’s servers instead of trying local delivery?
This issue arises because the mail command defaults to using the local MTA configured on your server instead of recognizing your Gmail SMTP settings. I experienced similar challenges when transitioning from a local mail server. Essentially, the mail command overlooks external SMTP configurations and defaults to whatever MTA is installed. You have two approaches: configure your current MTA to relay through Gmail or opt for a simpler solution like ssmtp or msmtp, which efficiently manage Gmail SMTP authentication without the complexities of a full setup.
Your mail transfer agent is defaulting to local delivery because Gmail’s SMTP isn’t set up properly. You need to configure your MTA (probably Postfix or Sendmail) to use Gmail as an external relay. For Postfix, edit the main.cf file and add this line: relayhost = smtp.gmail.com:587. You’ll also need SASL authentication with your Gmail credentials and TLS enabled for security. The hostname warning can be fixed by setting a fully qualified domain name in your system settings, but it won’t break SMTP functionality.
sounds like ur config is missing the smtp settings for gmail. double check if port 587 is open and that ur using an app password instead of your regular gmail pass. without the correct relay, it will just default to localhost.