# ActionMailer cannot use SMTP for email delivery **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [August 16, 2006, 4:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/actionmailer-cannot-use-smtp-for-email-delivery/65162 "2006-08-16T16:32:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Peter\_Vandenberk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@Peter\_Vandenberk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Peter_Vandenberk)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 4:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/actionmailer-cannot-use-smtp-for-email-delivery/65162/1 "2006-08-16T16:32:33Z")
RoR aficionados, I’ve configured ActionMailer for SMTP delivery of emails, and have configured “config/environment.rb” accordingly, including the address of our (external, but fully operational - checked and double-checked 🙂 SMTP server. Sending out emails from my Windows development laptop works without a hitch, but on a Linux staging server using the exact same source code with the exact same config files it doesn’t work; the symptoms are as follows… If I put the name of the SMTP server in “config/environment.rb” I get the following SocketError on the Linux box: ``` getaddrinfo: Temporary failure in name resolution /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:206:in `initialize' ... ``` If I put the SMTP’s IP address in “config/environment.rb” instead of it’s name, it doesn’t work either, but this time with a Errno::EACCES instead of the SocketError (again on the Linux box): ``` Permission denied - socket(2) /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:206:in `initialize' ... ``` Which is very strange, because if I run the following snippets on the same Linux box, I don’t get any errors whatsoever: ``` ruby -rsocket -e 'p Socket.getaddrinfo("NAME_OF_SMTP", "smtp")' ruby -rsocket -e 'p Socket.getaddrinfo("IP_OF_SMTP", "smtp")' ``` So it doesn’t appear to be a firewall, proxy or other configuration issue on the box that’s causing the problem. Also, a small Ruby program that invokes “TCPsocket.new” on port 25 of the SMTP server works correctly on the Linux box, and another small Ruby program that invokes “Net::SMTP.start” directly (ie. outside of Rails) to deliver an email via the same SMTP server correctly delivers the email from that Linux box… it’s just Rails that seems to be unable to deliver the email via SMTP. So it doesn’t appear to be a Rails configuration issue (as the config works on my Windows laptop) but at the same time it also doesn’t appear to be a configuration issue of the Linux box (as Ruby outside of Rails can correctly deliver email via SMTP) ??? I’ve gone through the stacktrace (attached below) with a fine comb, and “TCPsocket.new” and “Net::SMTP.start” seem to be the most relevant things to check (which I’ve successfully done, as mentioned above). An earlier post on this mailing list seems to describe the same (or - at least - sufficiently similar) issue: [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/pipermail/rails/2006-January/013967.html](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/pipermail/rails/2006-January/013967.html) but it appears no-one ever posted a follow-up. Many, many thanks in advance for any help (fix, further pointers) you can offer. Peter Vandenberk PS - full Rails stacktrace (Rails 1.1.6, ActionMailer 1.2.5) /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:206:in `initialize' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:206:in `old\_open’ /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:56:in `timeout' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:76:in `timeout’ /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:206:in `old_open' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/smtp.rb:393:in `do\_start’ /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/smtp.rb:378:in `start' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/smtp.rb:316:in `start’ /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionmailer-1.2.5/lib/action\_mailer/base.rb:511:in `perform_delivery_smtp' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionmailer-1.2.5/lib/action_mailer/base.rb:397:in `deliver!’ /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionmailer-1.2.5/lib/action\_mailer/base.rb:322:in `deliver’ ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Vandenberk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@Peter\_Vandenberk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Peter_Vandenberk)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2006, 12:02pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/actionmailer-cannot-use-smtp-for-email-delivery/65162/2 "2006-08-18T12:02:02Z")
For future reference, in case other people run into the same issue: as it turns out, the SMTP problem I reported earlier was caused by the fact that I was running my Rails application via Apache/CGI on a SELinux box… the default SELinux policy disallows HTTPD scripts/modules from connecting to the network, hence the error messages I was getting: SMTP from WebRICK, “script/runner” etc. was working, but was failing from Apache. Changing the “Allow HTTP scripts and modules to connect to the network” setting in the SELinux policy solved the SMTP problem I was experiencing in my Rails app. Doing so probably opened up a whole can of security issues, but at least email is now working! 🙂 Luckily the CGI thing is just a temporary setup… phew! FYI, Peter