I would not use the sandbox domain, as it has problems, does not work like a real domain and there is no reason to not start with the real domain for free.
Short description to start with MailGun with your own domain:
- Create an account at mailgun including a credit card
-> If you don't add a credit card, you will not be able to use MG
-> This don't means, that you have to pay unless you don't reach the limit
of 5'000 emails / month
- add your (existing) domain in MG (only possible, if you have added a CC)
under "Sending" - button "Add new Domain" (Button only visible if a CC is added)
- follow exactly the steps that are showed at the right top corner
in the MG portal. Title "Getting started"
You have to reach 100% before you will be able to send your first emails
Note:
This also includes "illogical" steps - e.g. send an email to mailgun@YourDomain
although, a mailbox "mailgun" does not exist
You further have to send an email to yourself
These steps seems to be needed for initial verification at MG
- add exactly the DNS entries from the MG portal (spf and mta) to your domain
To do this you need access to the portal of your domain provider
- in MG - under DNS Records - press button "Verify DNS settings"
the DNS settings have to be verified (a green check is showed), before you can send emails
- If anything is O.K., you will receive an eMail from MG:
Good news! The DNS settings you added for YourDomain have been verifyed.
- If you have received this email, you should be able to send emails over MG
Further notes to development (I work with Visual Studio 2017, Windows Forms and vb.net):
I had to set TLS 1.2 to be able to connect:
vb.net code:
ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol = SecurityProtocolType.Tls12
I further have added the NuGet package: RestSharp (as the code examples in MG are based on RestSharp).
Code example for vb.net (after adding the NuGet to RestSharp):
Imports System.Net
Imports System.Net.Mail
Imports RestSharp
Imports RestSharp.Authenticators
...
Dim client As RestClient = New RestClient()
client.BaseUrl = New Uri("https://api.eu.mailgun.net/v3/")
Dim cAPIKey As String = "YourKey from MG"
client.Authenticator = New HttpBasicAuthenticator("api", cAPIKey)
Dim request As RestRequest = New RestRequest()
request.AddParameter("domain", "YourDomain", ParameterType.UrlSegment)
request.Resource = "{domain}/messages"
request.AddParameter("from", "Your Description <Mailbox@YourDomain>")
' add mail address(es):
request.AddParameter("to", "mail-address1")
' further, if needed (Note: I send a single email to each recipient):
request.AddParameter("to", "mail-address2")
' add bcc mail address (if needed):
request.AddParameter("bcc", "bcc-mail-address")
' fill the mail:
request.AddParameter("subject", cMailBetreff)
request.AddParameter("html", cHTMLMailBody)
request.Method = Method.POST
Dim status As IRestResponse
status = client.Execute(request)
' state handling:
If status.StatusCode.ToString = "OK" Then
' O.K handling
Else
' Error handling
End If
Notes to the code above:
I send a complex html, that I have stored in a file that is loaded in the variable cHTMLMailBody.
After the load, some variables in the file are change to customer values stored on a SQL server (cMailBetreff also contains a customer specific generated text).
As I'm not from thee USA, I have to use the url: https://api.eu.mailgun.net/v3/".
If you are from the USA, you have to use another url (see MG portal).
Notes to the error handling in MG (Log in MG):
I have done some tests with the code above (that works).
As I also want to know (and store), if the sent email has reached the recipient, I have done some tests and sent emails to a not existing domain and an existing domain, but not existing mailbox.
To the not existing domain, an error was logged in MG (what is correct).
To the not existing mailbox, the state OK was logged in MG (what is wrong).
The reason to the wrong state (OK) to the not existing mailbox was, that MG don't receive non delivery mails, if there is no MX record to the domain that targets the MG server.
As we (manually) also send out emails to the domain from our own mail server, I don't wanted to change the mx record to our domain in general to the MG server.
Therefore I have added a sub domain to our domain (in MG and also at our DNS provider) and then added a MX record to the new sub domain that points to the MG server.
Then, I have changed the domain parameter to SubDomain.Domain:
request.AddParameter("domain", "SD.Domain", ParameterType.UrlSegment)
The problem then was, that a not nice "on behalf of" was generated automatically in the header.
I was able to solve the issue by adding a further parameter:
request.AddParameter("h:sender", "Your Description <Mailbox@YourDomain>")
(same value as in from parameter, whereby the h: is needed in addition)
After doing that, MG also receives non delivery emails and add also an error to not existing mailboxes.
So.. if you need to get/store the states to the sent emails and don't want to change your mx record generally to MG, you should add a sub domain (if not, you should not need a sub-domain).
For me, everything now seems to work as it should:
- we can sed out html mails over MG
- we can capture the states to the sent emails over the MG API
- we still can send (manually) emails over our own mail server
And important:
- if a recipient answers to an email, the answer is delivered to our mailbox on our server
Hope this helps somebody...
