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CSG FAQ

Q: How do I set up my outgoing (SMTP) email server using the CS server?

There are two different ways you can use the CS mail server as your outgoing (SMTP) server, authenticated and unauthenticated.

  • If you are setting this up on a home system or laptop that will be using a non-IU network you must use AUTHENTICATED smtp.

  • If you are setting this up on an IU system (like the workstation in your office) or will only be sending email while connected to the IU VPN (which gives you an IU IP address), then you can use either AUTHENTICATED or UNAUTHENTICATED smtp.

  • If you have any doubt which one to use, go with AUTHENTICATED smtp since it should always work.

Authenticated SMTP Configuration (Recommended)

The CS mail server can be used as your outgoing (SMTP) server using authentication with the following settings:

  • Outgoing (SMTP) Mail Server: smtp.cs.indiana.edu
  • SMTP Port: 2525
  • Authentication: Required. Use your normal CS username and password
  • Security/Encryption: STARTTLS/TLS is required

Below are details of how to set things up in Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express/Vista Windows Mail, Apple Mail, Eudora, and Pine. In all of these examples you will need to change username to your CS username.

Here are some notes and caveats as you set this up:

  • SMTP Port - We are using port 2525 instead of the standard SMTP port number, 25. Some ISPs are blocking outgoing traffic on port 25 in an attempt to prevent spamming so using this alternate port eliminates this as a possible problem. If you want to test connectivity to port 2525 on the cs server you can run "telnet smtp.cs.indiana.edu 2525" from a command prompt on Windows or Linux. If this works you should see a greeting message from the mail server that looks something like:

    220 rage.cs.indiana.edu ESMTP Sendmail ...

    If this telnet just hangs then there is a pretty good chance a router somewhere is blocking that port.

  • Authentication - You are required to use authentication when connecting to smtp.cs.indiana.edu. It is only through this authentication that we are able to allow non-IU systems to relay mail and to accept your email without having to pass it through our spam scanner.

  • Encryption - Since you are logging in with authentication you will be required to use encryption using STARTTLS (aka. TLS). Most mail programs differentiate between SSL and TLS for the outgoing server and you must use TLS. Once exception is Apple Mail which just has a single SSL checkbox but it should properly negotiate TLS with the mail server. Setting SSL for the outgoing mail server with most other mailers will fail. Note that this is ONLY for the outgoing mail server. If you are also using mail.cs.indiana.edu as your incoming mail server (via IMAP or POP), you will have to use SSL.

  • SSL Certificate- The CS mail server uses a locally-signed SSL Certificate for the encryption. This means that you are likely to see a message warning you that the certificate could not be verified. This is normal and you must explicitly accept the certificate.

  • Debugging - If your email is being sent through smtp.cs.indiana.edu and you want to confirm that authentication is working you can verify this by looking at the Received: headers. Just send yourself an email and then look at the full headers of the message. In thunderbird you can do this by selecting View/Headers/All. Once you are viewing the full headers of the message you will see one or more Received: header lines. You should see a line that looks like this:

    Received: from ...originating host... (authenticated bits=0) by server.cs.indiana.edu version_info with ESMTP id message_id (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO) ...

    The "(authenticated bits=0)" means you were properly authenticated and the "(version=TLSv1/SSLv3...)" means the connection was encrypted. If the "(authenticated bits=0)" string is missing then you were not authenticated. If the "(version=TLSv1/SSLv3...)" strings is missing then the STARTTLS/TLS encryption was not negotiated. You should never see the authenticated message without the TLS message since our mail server is configured to deny authentication if the connection is not encrypted.

The following are instructions for setting up your outgoing mail server using the most popular mail readers in use within the department.

Thunderbird

Go to the Account Settings option from the Edit (Linux) or Tools (Windows) menu. From there click on Outgoing Server (SMTP), select your outgoing server and click Edit. From this page you will be able to set things as follows:

Outlook

ATTENTION: These instructions are for Outlook, not Outlook Express or Vista Windows Mail. See the next section if you are using Outlook Express or Vista Windows Mail.
  1. Set your outgoing mail server to be smtp.cs.indiana.edu by going to Tools/Account Settings... and then double-clicking the account. On this page you can specify smtp.cs.indiana.edu as your outgoing mail server.

  2. Set your outgoing server to require authentication by then clicking More Settings.../Outgoing Server Tab. On this page, set that authentication is required:

  3. Set the encryption protocol to be TLS by then clicking the Advanced tab:

Outlook Express/Windows Mail

ATTENTION: We have not been able to get Outlook Express under Windows XP or Windows Mail under Vista to work with smtp.cs.indiana.edu and the problem seems to be related to TLS negotiation failing to work when using a non-standard SMTP port. It works fine with the full-blown version of Outlook (and every other mailer we've tried) so if you are an Outlook Express/Windows Mail user you won't be able to use the CS smtp server with authentication. Your options are:

  1. Use UNAUTHENTICATED smtp - This will work if you are setting this up on an IU system or a non-IU system that will always be connected to the IU VPN when sending email.

  2. Use the UITS server - See the knowledge base article about how to set things up to use the UITS smtp server for your outgoing mail server.

  3. Use the ISP server - You can also use the mail server provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Contact your ISP for details.

Apple Mail

From Apple Mail select Preferences and then select Server Settings under Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP). Set things as follows:

Eudora

From Eudora, go to Tools/Options.../Sending Mail and set things as follows:

Note that your SMTP Relay Personality setting may be different than shown and you probably want to just leave that as it is currently set.

Once this is done, you need to change the port from the default (25) to 2525. In order to do this, you need to:

  1. Open Eudora and create a new message.

  2. In the body of the message enter the following string:

    x-eudora-option:SMTPPort=2525

    At this point, hit the Enter key and the string should become a link.

  3. Hold down the Alt key and click this link. This should bring up a dialog box that shows that you are setting the SMTPPort to 2525. Click OK to confirm.

    NOTE: If you are using an older version of Eudora (earlier than version 7) this may not work. If it doesn't then try entering the SMTP Server with a port number like this: smtp.cs.indiana.edu:2525 This is known to work with Eudora 6.2.4 on the Macs, which is the most recent version available for that platform.

Pine

If you are using pine on a CS system then there is no need to change the default configuration. However, if you are using pine on a system outside of the CS department then you will need to set up your smtp-server in your .pinerc. You can set the smtp-server from the setup option from within pine or by manually editing your .pinerc configuration file.

In order to use authenticated sending of email from pine set your smtp-server to:

smtp.cs.indiana.edu:2525/tls/novalidate-cert/user=username

Unauthenticated SMTP Configuration

IMPORTANT NOTE: You can only use unauthenticated SMTP from a system on the IU network or a non-IU system connected to the IU VPN. If you are setting up a home system or laptop you probably want to use AUTHENTICATED smtp.

The CS mail server can be used as your outgoing (SMTP) server without authentication with the following settings:

  • Outgoing (SMTP) Mail Server: mail.cs.indiana.edu
  • SMTP Port: 25 (default)
  • Authentication: None
  • Security/Encryption: None




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