> We only support Docker based installs now. Please see [our **official install guide**](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL.md) for supported install instructions.
That's great. Leave that there as we're going to try to get the mail to postfix
ASAP so postfix do it's job and process the mail for delivery.
## Email is IMPORTANT
Email notifications are core to the Discourse experience. We want your users to receive notifications as soon as possible so they can contribute to the conversation.
If sending email isn't something to which you want to devote your time, don't
worry about it. There are [companies](http://mandrill.com/) that dedicate
theirs to doing one thing very well - ensuring that mail to your users gets
1. Since we'll only be using this key for sending email and *nothing else*, check 'Only Allow This Key To Use Certain API Calls' and select only Messages / Send and Messages/ Send-Raw. Send-Raw must be selected or Discourse won't be able to send email.
1. Optionally, restrict this key to the public static IP address of your server.
1. Click 'Save'
### Configure Postfix for Mandrill
Thank you Mandrill for providing an excellent [guide on configuring Postfix to use Mandrill](http://help.mandrill.com/entries/23060367-Can-I-configure-Postfix-to-send-through-Mandrill-).
Additional notes on this document:
* Ubuntu has an `/etc/postfix/sasl` directory. Create a password file in there.
* Make sure you put your **API KEY** into this password file, not your **ACCOUNT PASSWORD**
* You may already have configured a `relayhost` earlier in the installation. If this machine is sending out ANY emails other than Discourse-generated notifications, follow the instructions in 'Relay only certain emails through Mandrill'.
After configuring postfix as per Mandrill's instructions, reload postfix with `sudo postfix reload`.
The above errors are caused by using an incorrect API key in your sasl passwords file. Fix that (edit `/etc/postfix/sasl/passwd`, run `sudo postmap` on it, then `postqueue -f` to restart the queue).
Jun 24 01:30:30 discoursetest postfix/smtp[25861]: table hash:/etc/postfix/sasl/passwd(0,lock|fold_fix) has changed -- restarting
Jun 24 01:30:31 discoursetest postfix/smtp[25872]: 7CBF280294C: to=<spoonman@discourse.org>, relay=smtp.mandrillapp.com[54.234.14.176]:25, delay=332, delays=331/0.01/1.2/0.17, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as C515B6380D3)
That's better! Our test message made it to Mandrill. Let's check Outbound Activity in Mandrill:
When DNS is properly configured, you should be able to click on 'Test DNS Settings' and Mandrill will confirm they are setup properly:
### Mandrill Options
Login to Mandrill and click on ⚙ (Settings)-> Sending Options
* 'Track Clicks' is enabled by default. This rewrites links in email messages to bounce off the mandrillapp.com domain for click tracking. Disable it here if you don't want that:
