using SMTP AUTH with IIS

Hi,

For testing i setup an account in outlook express and entered the username, password and server name of the smtp server, i was able to send mail to my yahoo.com email account.
Earier, I installed SMTP Enable on my server and was able (briefly) to send mails using CDONTS in IIS.
After a few test mails yahoo stopped accepting mail from me due to having no reverse dns record.  I then changed the settings in IIS from pointing to localhost (ie, SMTP Enable)  to point instead to the external smtp server i had setup, and changed the password to that of this SMTP server.
I have tried various options for security within IIS but i think this is to allow other network users to forward through my server so i have now disabled authentication entirely in this area

I think i can probaby get SMTP Enable to route through the external smtp server but I'd rather not rely on another (non built-in) service for this

Cheers,
rob

Hi,

>> I think i can probaby get SMTP Enable to route through the external smtp server but I'd rather not rely on another (non built-in) service for this

why not?  if it works, then what reason would you not use it?  Just because something ships with windows doesn't necessarily make it inherently better...

I'm still not quite sure exactly what you are trying to do, is it something like this:

web application -> local smtp server -> external smtp server -> yahoo mail

seems to me like there is a lot of bouncing around from one place to another - why not let CDONTS deliver directly to the external mail system?  Also, CDONTS is deprecated since wind2003/IIS6 - you should consider using CDO.sys instead (CDONTS is not available by default with IIS6 and probably woin't work at all with IIS7)

Cheers.

Hi again,

I noticed the service die a couple of times in the short time that i was using it and don't have much condfidence in it.  It relies on the in-built smtp service to run anyway so rather than have 2 services that can knock out the mail, I'd rather have just one, and one that i don't see fail very often

I can't use the local smtp server as there is not a local smtp server to use and the direct delivery method fails due to there being no reverse dns for the IP that the server is on

What i'm trying to do is this:

web app -> external SMTP server ->yahoo mail

Thanks again,
rob

Hi,

>> web app -> external SMTP server ->yahoo mail

no worries - that should work just fine.  this smtp server is not controlled by you then?

probably the best way, then is like I thought it was:

web application -> local smtp server -> external smtp server -> yahoo mail

then you set up the local smtp server to send all outbound mail via 'smart host' and set it up to use the smtp auth credentials that the external system needs.  Then your web app simply sends all mail to 'localhost' as the smtp server address.

Cheers.

Hi Meverest,

Yes, the SMTP server is external to my site and I have no control over it

Your last paragraph there is exactly what i'm trying to do but I'm having trouble.  I have created a virtual smtp server within IIS and in the "Advanced Delivery" section of this I have pointed to the external mail server, but I think there might be a problem with the way IIS is supplying credentials to this server (the external mail server is not a Windows box and uses SMTP Auth for mail forward requests and I don't have that as an option for outbound security within the virtual smtp server properties)  

this bit did confuse me though:
"Then your web app simply sends all mail to 'localhost' as the smtp server address."

When i had it working with Mail Enable I set my vritual smtp connector to point to localhost but that was the only thing i had to point a localhost, and now this is pointing at the external mail server.  Are you saying i need to specify localhost somewhere else?  This could be what i'm missing....

thanks again,
rob

Ooops, just realised that there was indeed another place i had to point to localhost, under "Server Extensions > settings" at the top lvl of IIS - this was pointing to my smarthost so was wrong, have now pointed this to localhost but no joy yet, will try playing with auth settings now

Right, that's still not done the trick, been through all the outbound auth settings and think i've covered all combinations so stumped now.  

To add to the fun a hard drive just failed so event log was full and had to clear it, not sure if this was happening before but i am getting an SMTP log stating that it was unable to resolve yahoo.co.uk.  This is odd as I can ping this address from the server and I don't have "attempt direct delivery before using smarthost" in my smtp prefs set, so no dns for yahoo should be required by the smtp virual server

Cheers