How to use AWS SES in Grafana to send emails?

Grafana Configuration
1

Using Grafana (mix of 7.x and 8.x) on Ubuntu and trying to setup SMTP and email alert channels. From the Grafana server(s) command line, I can connect to SES (openssl s_client -crlf -quiet -starttls smtp -connect email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com:587) and send test messages, but when trying to send from the Grafana UI, it always fails and the log says “Invalid Credentials”

I’ve tried using the plaintext user/pass as well as the base64 encoded user/pass… Has anyone gotten Grafana to send email using AWS SES?

My (scrubbed) SMTP config in grafana.ini:

#################################### SMTP / Emailing ##########################
[smtp]
enabled = true
host = email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com:587
user = plaintext_user (or base64_user) from SES config
password = ""plaintext_password or base64_password from SES config ""
;cert_file =
;key_file =
;skip_verify = false
from_address = verified_ses_user@ses_verified.domain
from_name = "Test Grafana"
2

Go to AWS IAM, create an SMTP user Obtaining Amazon SES SMTP credentials - Amazon Simple Email Service. Then add something like this to your grafana.ini smtp config section.

[smtp]
# If the password contains # or ; you have to wrap it with triple quotes. Ex “”"#password;"""
enabled = true
host = email-smtp.<your region>.amazonaws.com:587
startTLS_policy = MandatoryStartTLS
skip_verify = true
user = AKIASMTPUSERBLAH
password = SMTPSECRETBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH
from_address = <whatever email you want to say you are sending from>
from_name = Grafana
1 Like
3

For me it worked changing the port to 465 like so:

[smtp]
# If the password contains # or ; you have to wrap it with triple quotes. Ex “”"#password;"""
enabled = true
host = email-smtp.<your region>.amazonaws.com:465
startTLS_policy = MandatoryStartTLS
skip_verify = true
user = AKIASMTPUSERBLAH
password = SMTPSECRETBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH
from_address = <whatever email you want to say you are sending from>
from_name = Grafana