Each user working with mail applications, one way or another, is faced with setting up incoming and outgoing mail. One of the main elements is the configuration of the SMTP server. Consider what it is and how to make the necessary settings for various situations.
What is SMTP?
The abbreviation SMTP comes from the English phrase Simple Mail Transfer Protocol , which means “simple mail sending protocol”. Basically, its scope is limited to TCP / IP-based networks and the user level.
In any email program, often referred to as the mail client, there are special settings that allow you to configure the protocol settings. It is through him that all emails are sent to the mail server, where they are waiting for relay. Initially, the SMTP server uses TCP port number 25. However, with the development of e-mail services, the settings can change significantly.
Do I need to configure the server when sending letters from the mail service?
As a rule, any mail service on the Internet that offers users the services of sending and receiving electronic mail is already equipped with a pre-configured SMTP server. That is, the user does not need to produce anything.
The services themselves to enter their own mailbox only require the user to enter the login and password specified during registration, and it is not necessary to configure, for example, the Mail.Ru SMTP server just for the reason that all this was done initially (without this, the service simply would not work). But what if the user does not use Internet resources for some reason, but prefers standard clients such as Microsoft Outlook Express and Outlook or third-party software products, while having a registered mailbox in the Internet service?
Configure the SMTP server (Mail.Ru - the mail service where the box is registered)
Let's look at the standard parameters that should be applied to this service. Regardless of the email client used, absolutely all settings will be identical.
So, in order to properly configure the Mail.Ru SMTP server, you need to set the following parameters:
- outgoing mail server - smtp.mail.ru;
- user name - the full name of the email address registered in the service;
- password - the current combination of letters, numbers and symbols used to enter the box;
- the port when choosing the SSL / TLS encryption protocol is 465.
After these settings take effect, mail can be received directly in the user program used. As you can see, the SMTP server port is different from the standard (25), but this is already connected with the TCP / IP protocols.
We configure the SMTP server on Yandex
No less popular is the Yandex.Ru service. The SMTP server for it is configured in a completely similar way.
However, the smtp.yandex.ru address is used for the outgoing message server, the value 465 is specified for the port, but TLS is set exclusively in the security settings.
Install the SMTP server for distribution
Now let's move on to more difficult situations when the user for some reason (for example, to promote his own business or site) needs to send out mass mailing. It does not make sense to do this manually using online services or email clients, if only for the reason that it takes too much time and effort. Therefore, you can act in two ways: buy a ready-made SMTP server or configure it yourself.
In the first case, if you purchase a "white" server, this will require significant costs, as well as compliance with all the conditions of the developer or seller. You can, of course, purchase a “gray” server, but there is no guarantee that it will not be included in spam databases of search engines. This is only fraught with the fact that the very same Yandex when it receives letters from these sources will simply filter them and send them to the spam section, and Mail.Ru and Google mark the correspondence with the corresponding “spam” index. Manual configuration of the SMTP server looks both more reliable and more economical in terms of financial costs.
First you need to purchase a VPS server with Centos operating system version no lower than six. Please note immediately whether it is possible to enter a PTR record that will accurately identify the canonical domain name of the receiving server.
Next, you need to install the Vesta panel. As an example, we use the PuTTY utility, which you need to download, install and run. In the settings, we immediately register the IP address of the server, then click the Open button and register the root login and password provided when purchasing the VPS server.
Now we enter the following commands sequentially:
curl -O http://vestacp.com/pub/vst-install.sh
bash vst-install.sh
If an error occurs, solve it using a combination of:
bash vst-install-rhel.sh —force
After that, enter a valid email address and host name. After 5-10 minutes, the panel will be installed.
Next in the browser we use the address bar, where we write this:
https: // server IP: 8083
A window appears where you need to enter the root username and password provided.
At the next stage, register the domain and go to the DNS settings panel, where we swap the MX and A records .
We wait until the DNS zones are updated and go to the WEB tab in the Vesta panel, where we add the registered domain.
After that, we register SMTP accounts in the Mail section. To check in the same section, use the Open Webmail tab. In the appeared EXIM server window, enter the parameters of the created SMTP and send a test letter. If everything is fine, you can congratulate yourself.
Please note that in some cases a mass distribution may require a digital signature (not to be confused with a PTR record, which is responsible only for the authenticity of the domain or host). If it is absent, some receiving services may not trust the mailing list, and incoming mail itself will be marked as doubtful. So you need to take care of this in advance.
Instead of an afterword
It remains to add that setting up an SMTP server for email clients is not as complicated as it might have seemed at first. But for mass mailings, you’ll have to sweat over the setup. And you can use not only the option that was presented above. Some developers already offer automated systems for creating and configuring such servers for a very reasonable fee (or even free of charge).