Integrating Amazon SES with Microsoft Windows Server IIS SMTP - Amazon Simple Email Service

Integrating Amazon SES with Microsoft Windows Server IIS SMTP

You can configure Microsoft Windows Server's IIS SMTP server to send email through Amazon SES. These instructions were written using Microsoft Windows Server 2012 on an Amazon EC2 instance. You can use the same configuration on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2.

Note

Windows Server is a third-party application, and isn't developed or supported by Amazon Web Services. The procedures in this section are provided for informational purposes only, and are subject to change without notice.

To integrate the Microsoft Windows Server IIS SMTP server with Amazon SES

  1. First, set up Microsoft Windows Server 2012 using the following instructions.

    1. From the Amazon EC2 management console, launch a new Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Base Amazon EC2 instance.

    2. Connect to the instance and log into it using Remote Desktop by following the instructions in Getting Started with Amazon EC2 Windows Instances.

    3. Launch the Server Manager Dashboard.

    4. Install the Web Server role. Be sure to include the IIS 6 Management Compatibility tools (an option under the Web Server check box).

    5. Install the SMTP Server feature.

  2. Next, configure the IIS SMTP service using the following instructions.

    1. Return to the Server Manager Dashboard.

    2. From the Tools menu, choose Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Manager.

    3. Right-click SMTP Virtual Server #1 and then select Properties.

    4. On the Access tab, under Relay Restrictions, choose Relay.

    5. In the Relay Restrictions dialog box, choose Add.

    6. Under Single Computer, enter 127.0.0.1 for the IP address. You have now granted access for this server to relay email to Amazon SES through the IIS SMTP service.

      In this procedure, we assume that your emails are generated on this server. If the application that generates the email runs on a separate server, you must grant relaying access for that server in IIS SMTP.

      Note

      To extend the SMTP relay to private subnets, for Relay Restriction, use Single Computer 127.0.0.1 and Group of Computers 172.1.1.0 - 255.255.255.0 (in the netmask section). For Connection, use Single Computer 127.0.0.1 and Group of Computers 172.1.1.0 - 255.255.255.0 (in the netmask section).

  3. Finally, configure the server to send email through Amazon SES using the following instructions.

    1. Return to the SMTP Virtual Server #1 Properties dialog box and then choose the Delivery tab.

    2. On the Delivery tab, choose Outbound Security.

    3. Select Basic Authentication and then enter your Amazon SES SMTP credentials. You can obtain these credentials from the Amazon SES console using the procedure in Obtaining Amazon SES SMTP credentials.

      Important

      Your SMTP credentials are not the same as your AWS access key ID and secret access key. Do not attempt to use your AWS credentials to authenticate yourself against the SMTP endpoint. For more information about credentials, see Types of Amazon SES credentials.

    4. Ensure that TLS encryption is selected.

    5. Return to the Delivery tab.

    6. Choose Outbound Connections.

    7. In the Outbound Connections dialog box, ensure that the port is 25 or 587.

    8. Choose Advanced.

    9. For the Smart host name, enter the Amazon SES endpoint that you will use (for example, email-smtp.us-west-2.amazonaws.com). For a list of endpoint URLs for the AWS Regions where Amazon SES is available, see Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) in the AWS General Reference.

    10. Return to the Server Manager Dashboard.

    11. On the Server Manager Dashboard, right-click SMTP Virtual Server #1 and then restart the service to pick up the new configuration.

    12. Send an email through this server. You can examine the message headers to confirm that it was delivered through Amazon SES.