Gnaritas Amazon SES

Description

This plugin sends WordPress site email through Amazon’s Simple Email Service (SES) and can optionally monitor bounce and complaint notifications through Amazon’s Simple Notification Service (SNS) and suppress sending email to bounced or complained addresses. The plugin also logs bounce and complaint notifications and can export the saved data in CSV format.

Requirements

• PHP >= 5.5
• OpenSSL PHP extension
• Amazon Web Services account

To install:

1. Upload files to the WordPress plugins directory.
2. Activate in the plugins admin page.
3. Set up configuration as described in the “Configuration” section.

Note: This plugin includes Amazon Web Services SNS Validator v1.4.0 and AWS SDK for PHP 3.36.19. If you are using other plugins that use these AWS libraries, these may conflict with the versions in use with those plugins. It is not recommended to use this plugin with other plugins using the AWS PHP SDK, SNS Validator or any of their dependencies.

Configuration

In AWS:

IAM

The plugin requires an Identity and Access Management (IAM) user with API access and the following permissions:

• SES permissions:
  • SendRawEmail
  • SetIdentityNotificationTopic
  • SetIdentityFeedbackForwardingEnabled
  • GetIdentityVerificationAttributes
• SNS permissions:
  • CreateTopic
  • DeleteTopic
  • Subscribe
  • Unsubscribe

SES

• Make sure you have at least one verified “identity” (i.e. email address or domain) through which to send email.
• Make sure your account is out of the SES “sandbox”.

In WordPress:

• Enter the following in “SES Settings” admin page (under the “Amazon SES” admin menu):

  • From address: The email address to send mail from. This address or its domain should be verified in Amazon SES. (Defaults to WordPress’ admin email.)
  • From name (optional): The name associated with the from address. (WordPress’ default is “WordPress”.)
  • Host: The AWS SMTP endpoint through which to send mail. Available SMTP endpoints are listed here: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/smtp-connect.html. Choose the one for your SES region.
  • Port: The port on which to connect to the SMTP endpoint. Currently supported ports include 25, 465 and 587.
  • Access key ID, Access key Secret: The access key ID and secret access key for the IAM user you’re using to send email.
    • Note: SMTP credentials created using the SES control panel’s “Create My SMTP Credentials” will not work. If you’re using an IAM user that was created this way, you should create a new access key for them in the “Security credentials” tab on their IAM configuration page and use those credentials.
    • Security note: If your WordPress site doesn’t use https, the secret access key will be vulnerable to interception by third parties when submitting or viewing the SES settings page. It is not exposed when sending email or accessing the AWS API.
  • SES Region: The identifier for your SES account’s region. Supported regions are listed here: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/rande.html#ses_region. Use the value in the “Region” column (e.g. “us-east-1”).
    • Note: If you are using the plugin to handle bounces and complaints, your Simple Notification Service (SNS) region must be the same as your SES region.
  • SES Identity Type: Choose “Email” or “Domain”.
  • Choose whether or not you’d like the plugin to suppress email to bounced or complained recipients

• On submission, the plugin will verify your Amazon SES identity and send a test email to the SES simulator. If successful, WordPress will send email through Amazon SES.

• If you opted have the plugin suppress email to bounced or complained addresses, bounce and complaint notifications for your SES identity will be handled by the plugin.

• If email sending fails unexpectedly, the plugin will stop attempting to send email through SES and revert back to WordPress’ default email handling. This will also stop suppression of email to bounced or complained addresses.

• To resume sending through Amazon SES, verify your settings on the settings page and click “Save Changes”. The plugin will attempt to verify your SES identity and send a test email, and if successful, resume sending through SES.

• The plugin displays notifications indicating its current email and bounce handling state on its admin pages and on the WordPress admin dashboard.

Sending Test Email

You can send a test email using the current configuration from the WordPress admin panel under “Amazon SES > Test Email”.

SNS Notifications and Bounce/Complaint Handling

If you opt to have the plugin suppress email to bounced or complained addresses, bounce and complaint notifications from Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) will be recorded in the WordPress database. You can view the notifications and export them in CSV format in the WordPress admin panel under “Amazon SES > SNS Notifications”.

While the plugin is active and email suppression is in effect, email will be suppressed to addresses associated with any “Complaint” notification or a “Permanent” bounce notification. Bounces of type “Transient” are recorded but will not result in suppression of future email.

Screenshots

FAQ

Why would I want to use Amazon SES to send email?

Email sent directly from the web server using sendmail or a local SMTP server is more likely to be flagged as spam. If your website does things like send out alerts to users when new content is posted, you may run also into restrictions on email limits imposed by your hosting provider. Using a reputable provider like Amazon ensures prompt, reliable delivery of your site’s email.

There are other plugins that work with Amazon SES. Why should I use this one?

Gnaritas Amazon SES not only sends email through SES, but can also track bounce and complaint notifications and suppress email to which delivery has failed. This helps to protect your reputation on Amazon by avoiding sending repeated emails to bad addresses. You can also export bounce and complaint notifications in CSV format.

How do I set up an IAM user in AWS with the necessary permissions to send email and register bounce and complaint handlers?

If you’re unfamiliar with IAM, you can use the following recommended procedure to create a user with the necessary permissions:

1. Create an IAM policy with the required permissions:

   • From the IAM dashboard, click “Policies” in the left-hand navigation
   • Click “Create Policy”, and then “Select” under “Create Your Own Policy”
   • Enter a name for the policy (e.g. “SesSendAndSetNotifications”) and an optional description
   • Enter the following JSON policy definition under “Policy Document”:

   {
       "Version": "2012-10-17",
       "Statement": [
           {
               "Effect": "Allow",
               "Action": [
                   "ses:SendRawEmail",
                   "ses:SetIdentityNotificationTopic",
                   "ses:SetIdentityFeedbackForwardingEnabled",
                   "ses:GetIdentityVerificationAttributes"
               ],
               "Resource": [
                   "*"
               ]
           },
           {
               "Effect": "Allow",
               "Action": [
                   "sns:CreateTopic",
                   "sns:DeleteTopic",
                   "sns:Subscribe",
                   "sns:Unsubscribe"
               ],
               "Resource": [
                   "*"
               ]
           }
       ]
   }
   

   • Click “Create Policy”

2. Attach the policy created in step 1 to a new group:

   • From the IAM dashboard, click “Groups” in the left-hand navigation, and then “Create New Group”
   • Enter a name for the new group (e.g. “ses-managers”) and click “Next Step”
   • Find and select the policy you created in step 1 and click “Next Step”
     • Tip: Choose “Customer Managed” under “Filter” to more easily find your policy.
   • Click “Create Group”

3. Create a new user and assign it to the group created in step 2:

   • From the IAM dashboard, click “User” in the left-hand navigation, and then “Add User”
   • Enter a username for the new user
   • Check “Programmatic access” under “Access type”
     • Note: We recommend you do not check “AWS Management Console access”
   • Click “Next: Permissions”
   • Select “Add user to group” (selected by default) and check the group you created in step 2
   • Click “Next: Review”
   • Confirm the username, AWS access type and group membership, and click “Create user”
   • Important: Make a note of the new user’s “Secret access key”. You will need to enter it into the WordPress configuration page, along with the “Access key ID”. You can download the user’s credentials in a CSV file and/or display them on the page. This is your only opportunity to view the user’s secret access key.
     • (If you forget to save the user’s credentials, you can create a new access key for that user under “Security credentials” on the user admin page.)

Reviews

excellent plugin

tsiotas October 16, 2022

it’s very simple and it works without any problem

Excellent plugin, helped me fix my problem!

Richard May 7, 2020

I was having problems with SES not sending emails. I tried other plugins, but this one has the error handling needed to help me diagnose the permission problems I was having. Great job, and thank you for writing such a great plugin!

Does not work at all

surkhabfashion March 24, 2020

Copied all settings from another working plugin and it doesn’t work with this one. Errors when saving settings on the plugin

Love this plugin

JustDoIt123 December 3, 2019

Super simple but powerful plugin for amazon ses. Love you guy, very good job

All-in-one Amazon SES Capability

bertlio December 7, 2018

Thank you so much for this amazing and only working Amazon SES plugin that can track bounce and complaint notifications and automatically suppress email to which delivery has failed. So this maintains a healthy SES reputation which is essential! The documentations on how to use the plugin via WP and activate specific features via AWS are very easy to follow and integrate! A Must-Have if you’re using Amazon SES for your wordpress sites!

Excelent Plugin

Rafael Rodrigues August 24, 2018

Excellent Plugin. It has everything to be able to send and manage Amazon SES by WordPress, works with Bounces and Complaints, which is the highlight of this plugin. Congratulations to the author.

Contributors & Developers