How-To

Question: Can I send outgoing email from my computer using SMTP on the jppeach.net server?

Answer:

Unfortunately, you cannot. It would make a lot of peoples' lives easier, including our own, if we could. Below is an explination of why this service is not offered. Plus, some general information that can help you configure your mailer to work with your ISP's (Internet Service Provider) SMTP server.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol), sometimes called 'outgoing email,' is used to send messages from your computer to other computers. POP3 (Post Office Protocol Version 3), allows you to download your email from the mail server to your computer. While they seem to be doing basically the same thing they are actually quite different.

In basic terms, POP3 requires authentication of who you are before you can access your email. This is done by providing a username and password. SMTP does not require authentication. A mailer just connects to the SMTP server and says "Here is my message, please deliver it" and it does.

An SMTP server that accepts email from any computer is called an "open relay." Spammers search the internet for these servers. Once find, they connect to then and send millions and millions of messages. Since we all hate spam, SMTP connections from remote machines is forbidden on our server.

In an effort to control open relay's on residential computers, it is common pratice for ISPs to block the port used for SMTP communications. So, even if we offered the service it would be unlikely that you could use it without a custom configuration on your computer.

To send email you can use WebMail, which we provide or SMTP via a third-party. Normally, the ISP provides this service. Most of the time they do a very simple authentication by only allowing connections from computers with IP addresses that they own. If you are not getting your internet connection from them, they are not sending your email. However, we have no way of telling what IP addresses belong to our clients.

Since jppeach.net does not provide SMTP services we cannot give you detailed instructions on how to configure your computer. It varies from provider to provider. However, below is some general guidelines that will help you do it on your own. If you run into problems you will have to contact your provider for the specifics of their system.

There is four basic pieces of information you need (SMTP address, port number, username / password and connection type).

Your ISP can tell you what SMTP address you should use. For your convience a very incomplete list of ISPs and the SMTP address that they use is given below. This list is provided as a guide and is not authorative. If your ISP is listed and the SMTP address does not work you will have to contact them for the correct information (can you also let us know). If your ISP is not on the list can you send us the information so the list can be updated.

Below is a list of ISPs that do not provide SMTP access (that we know of). If we are wrong / out-of-date please let us know.

• Freeserve
• Mail.com
• Supanet
• Tiscali

If your ISP does not support SMTP (which they most likely do) there are a number of organizations that will provide this service. Some are fee based and there are a few free services.

The port number depends on the type of connection that is going to be made (see below). Some, but not many, providers allow for SSL connections. These connections are secure and use the standard port 465. All other connection types (no security and TLS) use port 25.

A username and password is not often required to connect to your SMTP server. If one is required, it will NOT be the username and password used for POP3 access on the mail.jppeach.net server. You will have to contact your ISP for this information.

There are three common connection types and these all relate to how secure the transmission of data will be. They are 1) no security 2) TLS 3) SSL. Most mailers offer a hybrid that is often labelled as "TLS, if avalible." It will try to make a TLS connection and if that fails it will use a "no security" connection. If in doubt choose this option.

As always, we are here to help. If you have a problem we can be reached at support@jppeach.net.