Need an ISP??

Notorious Lee · 18 Oct 2008 at 20:04

Hi guys,

I have currently hit a road block developing & testing an intranet site I am working on.

I am currently using BT as my ISP but they require email SMTP authentication which is a b*tch when it comes to developing online forms.

So can anyone recommend me an ISP I can use (preferably free) which doesn't require SMTP authentication?

Thanks.

zetec452 · 18 Oct 2008 at 20:08

why not getup a gmail account and realy through that?

Have BT blocked SMTP ports?

Notorious Lee · 18 Oct 2008 at 20:16

Well BT Yahoo requires a username & password which is causing me problems when sending an online form because it gives me the SMTP Authentication error.

So are you saying GMail doesn't require SMTP authentication?

Adz · 18 Oct 2008 at 20:39

If you run Sendmail or IIS SMTP server on your intranet server (and give it a proper hostname so your messages don't get junk filtered by the recipients) then you won't need a relay, the box can send the messages itself

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It's unlikely you'll find an ISP or hosting provider who will give you unauthenticated SMTP. Some will offer "POP before SMTP" but that isn't much use in this scenario.

Notorious Lee · 18 Oct 2008 at 21:03

Hi Adz,

I have had a look at this Sendmail program which looks quite complex to set-up.

I can't believe that there is nothing out there I can use to send email that doesn't require any authentication.

Everything that people have recommended I cannot get my head around because I am no where near as experienced as most of you guys.

Adz · 18 Oct 2008 at 21:09

It's not complex at all - in fact it (or a drop in equivalent) is probably installed on your distro already. Just set the path to sendmail in your php.ini and use the mail() function without any parameters. So long as your hostname is valid your e-mails should arrive without any further intervention.

Notorious Lee · 18 Oct 2008 at 21:32

Thanks for your advice Adz but once I have downloaded sendmail I don't even know where to start.

zetec452 · 18 Oct 2008 at 21:36

Scrap sendmail, probably the most complicated piece of software ever.

Nobody will allow an open relay as it will be spammed within seconds. Really your intranet site should be able to authenticate against a mail server or sit on a mail server to send emails.

What operating system is the intranet running on?

Notorious Lee · 18 Oct 2008 at 21:38

At the minute I am just developing it on my own laptop with Windows XP.

Like I say the problem I am having is emailing online forms. Everyhting else is working fine.

Adz · 18 Oct 2008 at 22:15

Oh you're running Windows? In that case you won't have much luck with sendmail

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Assuming you're using IIS, just enable the SMTP server. This will pick up your messages without authentication and relay them for you. Make sure you set in the SMTP server properties a fully qualified hostname and all will be well.

suarve · 19 Oct 2008 at 11:29

I always test my online forms using both a yahoo and gmail account.

Notorious Lee · 19 Oct 2008 at 12:19

Hi Adz

I'm actually using Apache for my web server.

Also, I have opened a gmail account but they also require authentication don't they?

Adz · 19 Oct 2008 at 14:05

Yes Gmail will require SMTP auth.

If you're using Apache you can still set up the IIS SMTP server (add/remove programs). Start it, view the properties and allow relay for 127.0.0.1. Edit your php.ini to SMTP to localhost (if it's not set that way already). Job done

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The other alternative if you really want to use an external SMTP server with SMTP auth is to use the Mail package from Pear to send messages instead of PHP's own mail function.

http://email.about.com/od/emailprogrammingtips/qt/et073006.htm