James Miller wrote:In setting up a system for a friend (Mepis installation) and finding him a cheap ISP (dialin), I've discovered his provider does not run an smtp server. So, I'm looking for alternatives so he'll be able to send mail from his machine. I've always only ever used smtp, and it's the only sort of mail transport scheme I can profess to have much of a grasp on (how it works, how to set it up). I've heard about things like sendmail and maybe qmail: aren't these alternatives for someone who can't, or doesn't want to, use an smtp server? Should I be looking to these as potential solutions to the problem of not having access to an smtp server? Are there other alternatives for sending email? I think I've heard that mail not sent through an smtp server has a greater chance of getting blocked by spam filters: is this true? Feedback on this query will be appreciated. Thanks, James
You absolutely have to send mail through a smtp server, or it doesn't get to the addresee. This ISP has one, they just don't let customers connect directly to it. Check and see if they have a POP3 or IMAP server set up - the settings that they have for Outlook are the closest to the ones that Mozilla and Epiphany use.
Failing that, you'll have to find third-party email (if all they offer is a web-based interface, etc). cwazy.co.uk isn't bad - I just had to go across the pond to get it (I'm American, but this was the best no-frills POP3 system I found, since my ISP was really boneheaded about non-US email).
What Jim says is sort of true, but still a bit misleading.
Certainly there needs to be an SMTP server somewhere in the setup, but it need not be the ISP's own SMTP server in all cases.
Alternative one: You can run your own SMTP server. The programs James asked about -- sendmail and qmail -- are themselves smtp servers. Other familiar ones on Linux systems are exim, smail, and smtpd.
The problem with this option is that a lot of SPAM-filtering software keeps track of dial-up address pools and will not accept SMTP connections directly from those addresses. Those sites enforce the rule that a dialup customer has to send e-mail through his or her ISP's SMTP relay. This is the problem James is describing above, although he got the details a bit wrong.
Alternative two: Use a Web-based e-mail service (like Yahoo Mail, or any of a zillion others ... find a list at http://www.emailaddresses.com/) and connect to the service using your Web browser. The service provider still uses SMTP servers, but you don't have to deal with them. Of course, you also do not have local (off-line) access to your mail or tools for composing mail, so this is not always a good idea for dialup customers.
Alternative three: Use an SMTP forwarder (relay) other than the one provided by your ISP. This sort of service is less common than it once was, again due to SPAM issues. If any still exist, the URL above will have listings for them. Use with Linux may be a bit tricky, if they want (for instance) POP-before-SMTP authentication ... I don't offhand know how to do that in Linux, but there is probably an app for it. Surely the standard X-based browsers can do this, no?
Alternative four: Not really an alternative, but check harder with your ISP. It's rare for an ISP really not to provide its customers with a way to send and receive e-mail, and I'd think it more likely that James, or his friend, misunderstood something the ISP said than that this ISP really doesn't provide for e-mail the standard way. It does, probably, have some sort of password (e.g., POP-before-SMTP) authentication, to restrict access to the forwarder ... so the same Linux issue may arise here. These days, some forwarders throttle connections, so you can send mail in normal, single-user quantities, but not in the volumes that support SPAM.
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