[Glastonbury] (no subject)

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

On Sat, Oct 11, 2003 at 06:58:11PM +0100, tom hayward wrote:
> What is a SMTP server?
> 
Simple Mail Transport Protocol - the "standard" Internet way
of sending mail (Listening/sending on port 25). The idea is simple: 
You have a mail server on your machine which connects to other mail 
servers to send/receive mail.  You also have a mail client
(mail reader/editor) which connects to your mail server spool and reads 
your mail.  [See also RFC 2821 which explains all of this.]

That's how it's supposed to work In Real Life on the 'Net - or did
up to about five years ago.  These days, you are much more likely to 
have an Internet Service Provider (ISP) who provides a big mail server
for everyone they service the accounts for.  Some ISPs may _insist_ that 
you use their mail server to send your outward mail - blueyonder does, for 
example.  

These days some people use fetchmail or equivalent programs to 
fetch the mail to read via a protocol called POP3 (Post Office Protocol 
3) although some mail clients (kmail, I think, is one) pull in the POP3
themselves. [POP3 - see RFC 1939]

In general, you want to be careful about running mail servers blindly
and may need to check what's appropriate/what your ISP will allow.

Check the configuration of your SMTP server very carefully - you don't 
want all the spammers in the world using you to send their mail for them 
:(

Hope this helps,

Andy