How to Setup SMTP Authentication in Outlook 2007

To prevent people from spamming through your server, most mail servers use some sort of authentication method. The authentication confirms that the user attempting to send the email is in fact allowed to send the email. While some servers still use an older “POP before SMTP” method, most newer systems require you to use STMP Authentication. This is a brief tutorial on how to setup SMTP Authentication in Outlook 2007.

SMTP Authentication Tutorial

Just click on the screen shot below to start the tutorial in a new window. The tutorial have sound so turn up those speakers.

POP before SMTP

Many servers, such as those powered by the Plesk control panel, support this type of authentication method. With this method, once you successfully check your email via IMAP or POP protocol, your IP addresses is then allowed to send email through the server. This security prevents unauthorized users from relaying email through your server.

While this method usually works well, you can have instances where an email client, including Outlook, may try to send an email before it checks email. In these cases, the email will fail with a relaying denied error. If you click Send/Receive again, the email will go through because you have just checked your email which triggers the POP before SMTP mechanism.

Another issue with this method is timing. Once you open up an IP, you don’t want to leave it open for too long because others may take advantage of it. If you close it too quickly, then the user will have delivery errors. This is especially a problem on public Wi-Fi networks where multiple users may share the same external IP address.

Fortunately, these problems can be avoided with SMTP AUTH.

SMTP AUTH

SMTP AUTH (smtp authentication) allows the email client to authenticate directly to the mail server without needing to check email first. This happens every time and email is sent. As a result, the timing problems and open IP concerns are resolved.

We recommend that you use SMTP AUTH on all email clients.

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