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GMAIL and the SMTP feature

Started by Dave91, March 03, 2006, 06:30:39 AM

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Dave91

Hi all,

Im havin bizarre problems in setting up GMAIL as the email smtp client on my forum!!!

smtp.gmail.com is the smtp server... i know that much
davessite.forum is my username
port... i am having problems with i think as others told me to use different ports and still i had no luck,...

Any ideas fellow friends?? :D

Dave
Thanks!!,
Dave

Elmacik

We cant use gmail's SMTP service with SMF. Because gmail requires SSL (Secure Socket Layer) login.
But SMF uses standard login for SMTP. So it wont be able to conntect to gmail.
Home of Elmacik

Dave91

Do you no a gd one i can use??

Dave
Thanks!!,
Dave

Oldiesmann

http://www.hotpop.com has free SMTP service, but they're not going to be as good as what you'd get with GMail.
Michael Eshom
Christian Metal Fans

Dave91

Thanks for the reply anyway mate!!

Dave
Thanks!!,
Dave

Lazybones

To use the GMAIL SMTP feature just do the following:

Found a way to fix this without altering SMF, it is rather simple.

1. Enable the SSL extension in PHP.ini
extension=php_openssl.dll

2. Use the following mail server settings in server setup
Mail Type: SMTP
SMTP server: ssl://smtp.gmail.com <-- ssl:// is case sensitive
SMTP port: 465
SMTP username: [email protected] <-- replace stars with account and domain name.

青山 素子

If you don't mind me asking, why are you trying to use the gmail servers as the outgoing mail server for your forum?
Motoko-chan
Director, Simple Machines

Note: Unless otherwise stated, my posts are not representative of any official position or opinion of Simple Machines.


Lazybones

Because Google will host your private domain email for free https://www.google.com/a/ .

You get a @yourdomain.com address, but they are hosted in a gmail interface that you can admin.

青山 素子

#8
But they aren't hosting your site. At least, I didn't see anything about offering webspace on the page. You can use your hosts' internal mailserver (or smtp gateway) just fine. It also cuts down on traffic because your forum doesn't have to establish a connection to Google's servers and send however many messages to there, just to have them relayed to their destination.
Motoko-chan
Director, Simple Machines

Note: Unless otherwise stated, my posts are not representative of any official position or opinion of Simple Machines.


Lazybones

#9
Quote from: Motoko-chan on September 11, 2006, 11:18:58 PM
But they aren't hosting your site. At least, I didn't see anything about offering webspace on the page.

You can have your email server MX record point to a different server than your DNS record for your site. Hosting email can be a pain when it comes to filtering, spam, viruses and users who don't want to clean out their account.

There is an option to host pages as well, but I don't think they support dynamic content of any type.

When you are hosting multiple accounts for a guild, or small company, you don't just tack them on to your ISP account.

青山 素子

I think you are misunderstanding my point, or I'm missreading you. You can use your hosted e-mail address as the sending address without having to use the gmail servers.

All MX records are for is where mail should come in when people are sending to you.
Motoko-chan
Director, Simple Machines

Note: Unless otherwise stated, my posts are not representative of any official position or opinion of Simple Machines.


Lazybones

If my custom domain addresses are hosted by google, and I want my outgoing email notices to match my google accounts (lets assume I have no ISP email hosting). Then I need to send them out via google SMTP.

I have found a way that works so I posted it. Also installing the open SSL extention and using ssl:// should fix some other users problems with ISPs who force SSL as an option on all email accounts just like google.

Lazybones

P.S. As an added bonus of using Googles SMTP for outgoing email.. All outgoing email is tracked and searchable in the email accounts sent item folder.

Goosemoose

I also have gmail hosting my domains email. I used to have my server send out the emails but lots of email servers were blocking email from the forum as spam since the originating address didn't resolve back to google. I'm going to try this ssl tip right now, thanks.

xtremecruiser

So how is this working out for anyone ?
Is there a limit to the amount of emails sent per hour ?

Goosemoose

Works great for me. Unfortunately I can't get it to work with joomla, but it works great for SMF!

unrelenting

Quote from: Lazybones on September 11, 2006, 10:01:21 PM
To use the GMAIL SMTP feature just do the following:

Found a way to fix this without altering SMF, it is rather simple.

1. Enable the SSL extension in PHP.ini
extension=php_openssl.dll

2. Use the following mail server settings in server setup
Mail Type: SMTP
SMTP server: ssl://smtp.gmail.com <-- ssl:// is case sensitive
SMTP port: 465
SMTP username: [email protected] <-- replace stars with account and domain name.

This works beautifully. Thanks.

Goosemoose

Ok, there is a huge problem here that I realized. There is a 500 email a day limit on all gmail accounts. This means that my messages were not getting sent out after about 6pm each day as I had reached my limit. Short of a mod to rotate through several email addresses, this will be a problem for most decent sized forums. Check your error logs in the admin panel to see if this is affecting you.

青山 素子

If you don't need the storage of sent messages, just use your gmail address, but send through your web server's mail setup.
Motoko-chan
Director, Simple Machines

Note: Unless otherwise stated, my posts are not representative of any official position or opinion of Simple Machines.


Goosemoose

My goal was to use googles smtp server. When I don't I seem to get blacklisted as spam more.

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