SMTP AUTH

Background

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is used for sending messages. SMTP servers do not normally require any authentication (such as a username or password) in order to use them. Unfortunately, SMTP servers that accept mail from anyone and will send it to anyone are frequently used to send spam. As a result the vast majority of SMTP servers will only accept mail from computers that are on the network which they are serving. This means, for example, that a dial-up ISP will only accept mail from you if you use are connected to the internet using one of their dial-up numbers.

Usually the best way to send email is to send it to your ISP's outgoing SMTP server. Sometimes you may prefer to use a different SMTP server. For example, if your ISP imposes draconian restrictions on the "From" header on your outgoing messages, or is unacceptably unreliable, or if you use a laptop and regularly connect to several different networks and don't want to reconfigure your mail software.

Using SMTP AUTH

Ever keen to provide a complete range of really useful services, Mythic Beasts provide an alternative SMTP service. As we cannot authenticate users by their network connection we use the standard "SMTP AUTH" protocol for authenticated SMTP. This is supported by most popular mail programs.

In order to use SMTP AUTH you will need to set up a password for SMTP AUTH. As SMTP operates over an unencrypted connection we do not allow shell account passwords to be used for SMTP AUTH (please see our topic on security for more information). To setup a password for SMTP AUTH create a file in your home directory called .mailauth containing a password. This should have 0600 permissions. You can do this by typing the following:


touch ~/.mailauth
chmod 0600 ~/.mailauth
pico ~/.mailauth
[ type the password and press CTRL-X ]

You can now configure your mail software to use SMTP AUTH, using your username and this password. Usually this is achieved simply by specifying a username and setting the outgoing mailserver to be mail.mythic-beasts.com. Note that the username is just the unadorned username, for example tomjones (many SMTP authentication systems would require something like tomjones@mail.mythic-beasts.com here, but we don't). Please contact support if you are having difficulty with a particular mail client.

Alternative port

Some ISPs try to force you to use their mail server for all outgoing mail. Sometimes this is to enforce policy, sometimes this reduces load on support lines as it allows misconfigured mail clients to operate correctly. This is achieved by using their firewall to redirect traffic to any host on port 25 (the standard SMTP port) to their own mail servers. If you are stuck behind such a firewall then you will not be able to connect to our mail server on port 25. You can use port 587 or port 987 instead, or maybe port 465 (see below).

Secure SMTP

The SMTP server supports the STARTTLS command to switch to an encrypted connection on ports 25, 587, and 987. We also support SMTP over TLS on port 465.

Different mail clients describe the possible scenarios in different ways, so the most reliable course is first to select a secure connection (which may be described as Use SSL, or Connect with TLS, or This server requires a secure connection (TLS) or similar) and then use whichever of ports 465 and 587 works for your client. Please contact support if you are having difficulty configuring this.