Basically I've been contracted (use term loosely) to build and support the website of a friend's company. That includes setting up their e-mail service. The web host they've gone with offers POP3 support for incoming mail but directs the budding web designer to "contact your ISP for details of the SMTP address to use". However our ISPs are not consistent - I use AOL, the 'CEO' uses another and the company's other employee uses a third, plus that other employee is going to be high-tailing it around the globe and will proably spend a lot of time in internet cafes! We need an SMPT server which can be loaded onto the website and which can be configured to work with Outlook Express (the only e-mail program the 'CEO' is prepared to use).

My HTML is pretty good, I can do a little perl and Java but my PHP etc is non-existent. What I need is pretty simple (and all the research I've done suggests that an SMTP server is outrageously simple to execute):

1. A file, script etc which can be uploaded to our website which acts as an SMTP sever for outgoing mail
2. Must be able to be invoked from Outlook Express
3. Totally secure: ideally only a list of e-mail addresses (employee@mydomain.co.uk) should be able to use the server.
4. Volume is not at all relevant - the maximum anticipated load is about 100 e-mails/day
5. Needs to be fairly easy for me to install and manage, or easy for me to learn the coding needed to do so.

Does anyone have any ideas if what I'm after is even possible, and if it is, how I might go about it? I've looked at qmail and sendmail, but they seem totally OTT for what I need; and complexity usually equals insecurity. Plus I'm not confident I could set up and manage them without opening a whole new sheaf of loopholes.

PS: Webhost uses linux servers, has support for Perl, PHP, MySQL, Python, CGI (CGI bin), at least.

I would either find a hosting plan that offers SMTP (almost all good hosting companies do), or if you want to setup your own in-house SMTP server if from the same location. Look into PostCast Server.

You have got things slightly wrong.

The email client (Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora etc) is where you would configure the SMTP address NOT on the host server.

So it does not matter in the slightest what ISP each individual user has each one would use their own. Apart from AOL users of course.

Apart from AOL users of course.

And therein lies the problem. AOL simply refuse to allow me to use them as the outgoing SMTP server.

I'm aware of what you've pointed out: I want to install a script or program on the site to act as an SMTP server, which can then be configured to be the SMTP server in outlook for the company's email addresses.

Alternatively, if someone knows how to persuade AOL to allow me to use their SMTP server for non-AOL e-mail addresses, that would solve all my problems at once, pretty much.

Your webhost does have SMTP servers. They may give you some BS about them not having the capability but if they can collect mail for your hostname via SMTP they can also send it. We also tell users to configure their email client to send via their ISP but also allow direct SMTP where required. The reason most (cheap) hosts tell clients to use ISP mailservers is it saves their bandwidth.

Unless they have totally disabled outbound mail all you will need is the mailserver dnsname (probably mail.hostname.tld or smtp.hostname.tld) and a user name and password that can authenticate to the server. Any of the POP3 usernames should be able to do that.

One issue you find with using an ISP mail server rather than the host, is that some spam filters on mail servers will do reverse DNS lookups and if the sender hostname and the mailserver hostnames do not match the mail will be binned.

It's true, they do... and the use of them is an optional extra which I think I'm gonna have to pay for if I can't get this to work!!

this looks somewhat promising but my Java isn't good enough to determine whether it can be used in the capacity I'm looking for. Is it at all useful or am I going to have to bite the bullet and by the extortionate upgrade package??

Many thanks,

Happy_melon

The java applet you linked to, runs on the client machine so will suffer the same potential spam filter issues as using the ISPs server if not more so.
The clients will probably find themselves unable to send mail to users on Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, AOL and a few others.

You could try http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpsmtpd/ but I would imagine the hosting co would be less than happy about you bypassing their bandwidth saving cheapness.

OK, to be honest I'm not too bothered what the hosting company thinks: It's not exactly going to be used for sending 300k e-mails per day!! I've downloaded the php file you suggested, as a .txt. I guess I save it as a .php and FTP it to my site, say www.mydomain.co.uk/smtp.php. Now what? Is it really as simple as configuing that address as the SMTP server in outlook?? And if it really is that simple, how (if at all) is authorisation built into the program (it's all greek to me!) to prevent anyone doing exactly the same thing and sending the other 299,990 e-mails/day?? That would seem to be the most important thing to work out.

Sorry if I'm sounding like a complete coding newb...