How To Get SMTP Server?

[Shinies]

Hey, how do i go about setting up my own SMTP server? it says in all the Email sending scripts that i need a SMTP server, how would i get one?

[this-is-me]

Do you have an email address?

[Shinies]

i sure do, its a Hotmail account.

[seandisanti]

i sure do, its a Hotmail account.

well that's not a pop/smtp mail system, so there isn't an smtp server to interact with. your isp probably has an smtp server that you have access to, but you'd have to use your own login information to interact with that server, so whatever you're sending would be traceable to you. also most providers that offer smtp have rate limits that only allow you to a set amount of message in a set amount of time, per second, per hour, per day... and sorry if you take offense that i may be implying that you're up to something bad, alarms just go off in my head when people are trying to programatically send mails through an anonymous provider.

I calls 'em as i sees 'em

[this-is-me]

This is the first thing I came across when looking for an SMTP Server on Google: http://www.postcastserver.com/

You can also sign up for a GMail address and have free pop and smtp from them with 2GB of email storage.

EDIT: here's another SMTP server, free this time: http://www.softstack.com/freesmtp.html

Edited October 3, 2005 by this-is-me

[scriptkitty]

Just a word of warning on SMTP servers. If you run your own SMTP server, you will bypass your ISP and the email will come from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx IP.

Sounds great so far, but... Your SMTP server will get the target email host from the DNS, then contact that isp and start sending the email. If you happen to send email to certain providers like AOL.com, you will be automatically rejected. Why? AOL and several others in an attempt to stop spam will not take any mail from any IP address that doesn't have a reverse DNS entry. You typical Static or dynamic IP will not have one. You can contact your isp and have them set one up however.

The second word of caution is that many isp hosts in an attempt to stop spam, will block traffic on the ports you would use to send your smtp mail.

Not impossible nor that hard to do, but knowing possible roadblocks might let you bypass problems down the road. I would first try one of the free smtp servers like above, make sure it works, and then dabble in your own smtp adventures.

[flyingboz]

Just a word of warning on SMTP servers. If you run your own SMTP server, you will bypass your ISP and the email will come from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx IP.

@ISP Issues running your own SMTP Server

Dynamic DNS services will bypass many ISP SPAM blocking efforts, but some ISPs will not allow residential

accounts to have inbound port 25 traffic.

You can also set up your own domain name for less than $10.00, some brokers (godaddy.com for one), offer full hosted email for the price of registering your own domain.

@SMTP Server Software

For free, Mercury is very full-featured, but somewhat difficult for the novice to configure properly.

MailEnable is free for non-commercial use, and is very easy to configure, IMHO.

@Security / SPAM / Good Internet Citizen

If you choose to implement an SMTP Server, MAKE SURE THAT YOU DISABLE SMTP RELAY and that the machine you choose to run the server of your choice is REASONABLY SECURE FROM HACKING ATTEMPTS.i.e. service packs and updates installed, passwords applied, etc. Persons who throw up an SMTP server often find that they are getting nastygrams from their ISP, and their IP address is placed on blacklists due to their SMTP server being hijacked for use by others.

[Shinies]

alright, thank you guys, you helped me learn alot. I just decided to go with GMails free one for now. Thank you all for your help