Not able to send the email notification

[bharat4212]

i am trying to send the email notification but its not working.

i am using docker compose to run the defectdojo, configured the below variables but its not working

  DD_EMAIL_HOST: smtp.xxx.test.com
  DD_EMAIL_PORT: 587
  DD_EMAIL_USE_TLS: "True"
  DD_EMAIL_USE_SSL: "False"
  DD_DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL: noreply_defectdojo@test.com
  DD_ENABLE_EMAIL_NOTIFICATIONS: "True

i can see the env variable in django-defectdojo-uwsgi-1 container as well.
but if i am trying to send email from vm on which defectdojo is running its working. what could be the reason.

Your support is appreciated as always.

[valentijnscholten]

What's in the logs?

[bharat4212]

added the smtp configuration for celeryworker as well, but still getting the same

here are the logs:-

[03/Mar/2026 08:37:43] ERROR [dojo.notifications.helper:406] Unable to send Email Notification
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/app/dojo/notifications/helper.py", line 403, in send_mail_notification
email.send(fail_silently=False)
~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.13/site-packages/django/core/mail/message.py", line 301, in send
return self.get_connection(fail_silently).send_messages([self])
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.13/site-packages/django/core/mail/backends/smtp.py", line 128, in send_messages
new_conn_created = self.open()
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.13/site-packages/django/core/mail/backends/smtp.py", line 86, in open
self.connection = self.connection_class(
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^
self.host, self.port, **connection_params
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
)
^
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.13/smtplib.py", line 255, in init
(code, msg) = self.connect(host, port)
~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.13/smtplib.py", line 341, in connect
self.sock = self._get_socket(host, port, self.timeout)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.13/smtplib.py", line 312, in _get_socket
return socket.create_connection((host, port), timeout,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
self.source_address)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.13/socket.py", line 864, in create_connection
raise exceptions[0]
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.13/socket.py", line 849, in create_connection
sock.connect(sa)
~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^
ConnectionRefusedError: [Errno 111] Connection refused

[valentijnscholten]

That looks like a local networking issue.

Most likely causes:

The SMTP host is localhost or 127.0.0.1 — Inside a container, localhost refers to the container itself, not the host machine. The user needs to use the host's actual IP or host.docker.internal (on Docker Desktop) or 172.17.0.1 (the Docker bridge gateway on Linux).

The SMTP server is on the host network — By default, Docker containers run in a bridged network and can't reach services bound only to localhost on the host. Options:

Use --network host in Docker Compose (Linux only)
Or use the host's LAN IP address instead of localhost
Firewall blocking outbound from the container — If using ufw or iptables, container traffic may be blocked on port 587.

Quick diagnosis: The user can run from inside the container:

docker exec -it <container_name> nc -zv <smtp_host> 587
If it fails, it's a network reachability issue. The fix is almost certainly changing the SMTP hostname from localhost/127.0.0.1 to the host's actual IP or host.docker.internal.