Pop before SMTP authentication

[kevinuaa]

because of restrictions by my webhost, I need to use "pop before SMTP" authentication. However, I am unable to find any explicit mention of this on any of the popular Mac mail clients. Does anyone know which mail programs support this? As far as I can tell Entourage, Mail, thunderbird all do not mention this explicitly.
Thanks for your help.

 

[Nermal]

POP before SMTP simply means that you need to check (receive) your email before sending any. Of course, this can be done with any email app

 

[crazzyeddie]

Is there a purpose for that? Does the server have a timeout that begins with a POP login or something? I've never heard of that being used with any major US ISP.

 

[varmit]

I thought most clients do pop first before smtp.

 

[Westside guy]

They might actually just be referring to authenticated SMTP. The actual SMTP protocol doesn't include authentication provisions, but because of spam issues a lot of ISPs are requiring users to log into the SMTP server before being allowed to transmit outgoing messages. This is done with various add-ons, and I believe it uses the same scheme as POP3 authentication.

 

[crazzyeddie]

Alot of SMTP servers require that you log in, most using passwords. GMail has this requirement.

 

[phillymjs]

Is there a purpose for that? Does the server have a timeout that begins with a POP login or something? I've never heard of that being used with any major US ISP.

Yes. When an authenticated user accesses their mail via POP from a given IP address, that IP address is temporarily added to the list of hosts from which SMTP mail will be relayed by the SMTP server.

POP before SMTP authentication tightens up the mailserver so spammers can't easily use it as a relay. The temporary authentication feature is so, for example, people who telecommute don't have to give the mail admin their cable/DSL IPs to be added to the "relay mail from these hosts" list. Given that most home broadband uses DHCP, it would be a huge pain to maintain the list of employee IPs so everyone who works at home could send mail through the company's email server. POP before SMTP removes the administration overhead while still keeping the server relatively locked down.

~Philly

 

[crazzyeddie]

Thank you