Email Setup Guide

This guide explains how to configure Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) as the email provider for your Nected deployment. Using Amazon SES, Nected can securely send notifications and emails through your AWS account.

Configure Amazon SES

Prerequisites

Before configuring Amazon SES in Nected, ensure the following:

• A deployed Nected instance. If not installed, refer to the Installation Guide.

• An active AWS account. Create an AWS account if you don’t already have one.

• Amazon SES setup completed:

  1. Enable SES in your AWS account.

  2. Generate the IAM user’s access key and secret key.

💡 Amazon SES enforces sending limits and sandbox restrictions. Refer to Managing your Amazon SES sending limits and Moving out of the sandbox for details.

To enable Amazon SES in your Nected deployment, update the configuration values in your nected-values.yaml Helm file (for Docker Deployment, the file will be nectedconfig/nalanda.env) as described below:

# Replace all the placeholder values with actual values
# Enable email functionality
SEND_EMAIL: "true"

# Set SES as the email provider
EMAIL_PROVIDER: "ses"

# AWS SES credentials
AWS_ACCESS_KEY: "<your_aws_access_key>"
AWS_SECRET_KEY: "<your_aws_secret_key>"
AWS_REGION: "<your_aws_region>"          # e.g., us-west-2

# Sender information
SENDER_EMAIL: "<your_verified_ses_email>"
SENDER_NAME: "Nected Notifications"

Configure Email using SMTP Server

Prerequisites

Before configuring SMTP email settings, ensure the following:

• Your self-hosted Nected instance is installed. Refer to the Cloud Deployment Guide if not yet set up.

• You have an active account with an SMTP email service provider (e.g., Gmail, SendGrid, Outlook, etc.).

• Your email/domain is verified with your chosen SMTP provider.

You can configure your email provider in Nected using the following steps in your Helm deployment:

Edit your Helm values file (nected-values.yaml) (for Docker Deployment, the file will be nectedconfig/nalanda.env) and add the following SMTP email configuration block:

# Replace all the placeholder values with actual values
SEND_EMAIL: "true"
EMAIL_PROVIDER: "smtp"
SENDER_EMAIL: "<[e-mail]>"
SENDER_NAME: "Nected Notifications"
EMAIL_HOST: "<smtp_host>"
EMAIL_PORT: "<smtp_port>"
EMAIL_USERNAME: "<smtp_username>"
EMAIL_PASSWORD: "<smtp_password>"

Testing the Email Setup

To confirm that your Amazon SES configuration works correctly:

• Trigger an email notification (e.g., password reset) from your Nected instance.

• Verify receipt in the recipient inbox.

• Check the spam/junk folder if the email doesn't appear in the primary inbox initially.

⚠️ Important:

To avoid emails being flagged as spam, ensure your DNS settings include a valid SPF record for Amazon SES.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter any issues:

• Verify SES identity status (email/domain) in your AWS SES Console.

• Check AWS SES sending quotas (sending rate, daily sending limit).

• Review Kubernetes pod logs for Nected backend service (kubectl logs <nected-backend-pod>).

If you still have issues or require further assistance, please contact our support at [e-mail].

Deploy Updated Configuration

Apply these updated values using Helm:

helm upgrade -i nected nected/nected -f values/nected-values.yaml
kubectl rollout restart deploy nected-nalanda