Generate credentials to connect to an Amazon SES SMTP endpoint

The following code example shows how to generate credentials to connect to an Amazon SES SMTP endpoint.

Python

SDK for Python (Boto3)

Note

There's more on GitHub. Find the complete example and learn how to set up and run in the AWS Code Examples Repository.

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import hmac
import hashlib
import base64
import argparse

SMTP_REGIONS = [
    "us-east-2",  # US East (Ohio)
    "us-east-1",  # US East (N. Virginia)
    "us-west-2",  # US West (Oregon)
    "ap-south-1",  # Asia Pacific (Mumbai)
    "ap-northeast-2",  # Asia Pacific (Seoul)
    "ap-southeast-1",  # Asia Pacific (Singapore)
    "ap-southeast-2",  # Asia Pacific (Sydney)
    "ap-northeast-1",  # Asia Pacific (Tokyo)
    "ca-central-1",  # Canada (Central)
    "eu-central-1",  # Europe (Frankfurt)
    "eu-west-1",  # Europe (Ireland)
    "eu-west-2",  # Europe (London)
    "eu-south-1",  # Europe (Milan)
    "eu-north-1",  # Europe (Stockholm)
    "sa-east-1",  # South America (Sao Paulo)
    "us-gov-west-1",  # AWS GovCloud (US)
    "us-gov-east-1",  # AWS GovCloud (US)
]

# These values are required to calculate the signature. Do not change them.
DATE = "11111111"
SERVICE = "ses"
MESSAGE = "SendRawEmail"
TERMINAL = "aws4_request"
VERSION = 0x04


def sign(key, msg):
    return hmac.new(key, msg.encode("utf-8"), hashlib.sha256).digest()


def calculate_key(secret_access_key, region):
    if region not in SMTP_REGIONS:
        raise ValueError(f"The {region} Region doesn't have an SMTP endpoint.")

    signature = sign(("AWS4" + secret_access_key).encode("utf-8"), DATE)
    signature = sign(signature, region)
    signature = sign(signature, SERVICE)
    signature = sign(signature, TERMINAL)
    signature = sign(signature, MESSAGE)
    signature_and_version = bytes([VERSION]) + signature
    smtp_password = base64.b64encode(signature_and_version)
    return smtp_password.decode("utf-8")


def main():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
        description="Convert a Secret Access Key to an SMTP password."
    )
    parser.add_argument("secret", help="The Secret Access Key to convert.")
    parser.add_argument(
        "region",
        help="The AWS Region where the SMTP password will be used.",
        choices=SMTP_REGIONS,
    )
    args = parser.parse_args()
    print(calculate_key(args.secret, args.region))


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

For a complete list of AWS SDK developer guides and code examples, see Using Amazon SES with an AWS SDK. This topic also includes information about getting started and details about previous SDK versions.