strange smtp question

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guys forgive me if this is incredibly stupid but it is doing my head in....

a guy came into my office today who has a webmail account with company X, we have a guest adsl network and after he asked me to setup his outlook to talk to his webmail i thought "no problem", i found out the pop and smtp details of his host and configured outlook accordingly.....

it would receive ok but just wouldnt send....i called his webmail support team to check if the smtp port was something other than 25 and the guy said something that has been frying my brain ever since.

he told me that i would need to find out the smtp details of the company who provide our guest adsl network......and put them in instead of the current (email host), this just doesnt compute in my head though as i thought (and this could well be wrong) that his (email host) smtp server would be the one which i entered in outlook.

what kinda affirms this for me is i have setup many aol accounts using just the pop and smtp details (of the aol servers) and i havent ever had a problem (and none of those people are using aol as a isp)

can anyone clarify this for me as its bugging the back end off me.

thanks

 

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I used to sell broadband to customers and also provide email facilities and domain hosting via a VPS.

If the customer was sending using the ISP's SMTP server then yes, usually had to ask the ISP to add the customer's domain to the permitted outgoing relay list (and sometimes had to keep asking as domains seemed to drop off the list occasionally). The other alternative was to use the domain smtp via the VPS which did not require any action from the ISP.

From what you describe I would suspect you got a "standard" answer from soneone who did not really understand the setup. Why it didn't work tho' - hmmn, not sure. What did you enter for the smtp details ?

 

hi darkstar

the settings i used were smtp.hotchilli.net and port 25

i tried it with "this requires auth" but it just kept requesting the password (even though the guy said it was right)

really confusing

 

Ah just remembered. You may need to select that the outgoing server requires authentication (but not secure pasword authentication)and then use account name and password again. That should solve it. Account name may be full email address, shortened version or something else (sorry, not familiar with hotchilli service).

HTH

 

yer i did that and it just kept prompting....thats not what was confusing me though.

so just for my sanity can you confirm that i can access a smtp server over the internet (and dont need to relay smtp requests through the isp whos connection i am using.)

i know i can do this with aol but they might be using some crazy setup

 

Yes, you should be able to but you may need to sort the authentication side out depending on the ISP. I had to use what I described above for my sister to access mail."domain".co.uk and she uses Sky as her ISP. Without the authentication bit the outgoing mail just sat there but we did not need to ask Sky to do anything. Once I'd sorted the authentication bit it all worked fine.

 

Just found this for hotchilli :

These instructions are for Outlook 2000, but other versions of Outlook are similar

Choose Accounts from the Tools menu
Press Add and choose Mail
For Display Name, type in the name you would like others to see when they receive your e-mail
Press Next
Type in your e-mail address - this could be catchall@[yoursitehere.com] or yourname@[yoursitehere.com]. If you are unsure what it is, check with us or the person who set up your e-mail accounts

Hotchilli: For the POP3 server enter pop.hotchilli.net
123connect: For the POP3 server enter mail.[yoursitehere.com]
Use the details provided by your ISP for your outgoing SMTP server

Hotchilli: For the account name, type in the whole e-mail address. For example, mine would be [email protected]
123connect: For the account name, type in the first part of your e-mail address. For example, mine would be ianf
If you don't yet know your password, ask the person who set up your account to tell you. It may be somebody at Your e Solutions; if so, contact us. Type it here.
Choose the appropriate connection setting. If you are unsure, select I will establish my connection manually
Click Finish
Click Send/Receive in the toolbar at the top to check your mail. If you get an error, check your settings again. If the problem continues, contact Your e Solutions support.
* If you are not using our dial up service to connect to the Internet you will have to use the SMTP server of the ISP you are dialling into. The easiest way to find this out is by looking at the settings for your existing email account and copying the SMTP server name and pasting it later. If you get relaying denied messages after this then you will have to a) use webmail or b) use our dialup.


Looks from that as tho' there may be an issue and you have to use the outgoing smtp of the ISP (which then may require the ISP to add the domain to the outgoing relay list).

Simple solution - redirect mail to a blackberry or get them to move from hotchilli !

 

thanks for the info mate, so it comes down to whether or not the email providers smtp servers can be accessed over the internet, if not then we have to use the smtp server of the isp we are connected to (which is quite poor as we might be connected to 5 diffrent isp's per day over various wirless networks, and getting them to add hotchilli to the relay list is a massive pain)

so therfor it must mean that aol's smtp servers are accessable from the internet as i was able to connect to them the same way as i tried hotchilli

 

ok after speaking to another of the techies at work i thnik i have a handle on it (kinda lol)

i have drawn a diagram (because i feel i learn better from visuals) on what scenarios it could be

can someone kindly tell me which one it is

mucho thanks

 

sorry, too small. when I enlarge your text blursa dn I can't read it

 

Hi,

I cannot see your diagram clearly, although from what you describe it is because the service does not allow unsolicited connections for security and spam measures.
If you had an IP which was provided by them, it probably would allow you to connect. If you use a paid for service (such as Fastmail) you can. The reason for this is: they know who you are when you are smtp'ing (is that a word!) through them (by supplying a username and password) enabling you to use outlook, thunderbird (or any other client to use as normal). It is common practice to protect in this way and the reason most people in this situation use a web portal.

Hope that helps.

Boyce

 

thanks for the input lads, i guess what is confusing me is that i thought that regardless of where in the world someone was they would use the smtp servers provided by the email provider (yahoo, googlemail, aol) to send the email, but it would seem that infact they use the smtp server of the isp they are currently connected to (so if in scotland it could be F9, or tiscali in Ireleand etc)

i just thought that if i sent an email through outllook it would travel along the internet to my aol, googlemail or yahoo SMTP server and then be dealt with by them. (of course after logging in)

i have zipped the picture up for better quality, thanks again for the input so far, everyday is a school day

 

Ok, i have your diagram and it is clear this time.

It really boils down to "companyX" in your original post. You can smtp through gmail because they allow it (from anywhere in the world) although i couldn't smtp through my Plusnet e-mail address (unless i was sat on an IP which was dished out by Plusnet), although could pop from it.

Either:
Use someone such as gmail
or
in the case of a company, use a host who will allow smtp from non owned addresses.

Hope this helps.

Simon

 

thanks mate, that clears it up somewhat,

so for complete peace of mind

it doesnt matter what network you are on it is still the email providers (in this case companyX) SMTP servers you are connecting through and not the SMTP servers belonging to the isp you are currently connect to)

Marleeeen

(sorry had to say it)

 

if you are sending e-mail from "companyX", yes Rodney!

 

yeah, that makes sense to me.

i one question that would clear this whole thing up in my mind would be

"if i set up my outlook to use smtp.aol.com, but i am not on the aol network (lets say i am on a train using wireless) what is the first smtp server my email hits?? is it the smtp server of the wireless provider...or is it smtp.aol.com."

common sence tells me that its the smtp.aol.com (as that is what i have defined in outlook), but my collegue is saying that the first smtp server it hits is the provider of the wireless network.

aarrrrrggghhhh lol

 

the AOL SMTP.

 

mate thats awesome

thanks to all of you for your replies, it is how i thought it was