InetSendMail question

[kmagas]

We need to send an email from LabWindows CVI. I am trying to understand how InetSendMail works.

The help file says about the Server parameter: "The name or IP address of a machine running an SMTP mail server.  "

I have sent an inquiry to our IT department about using our companies email server for this, but I have my doubts if they will allow us to access the server.

Suppose I set up an email address at hotmail.com. Can I use the email address I set up, something like myusername@hotmail.com in the server parameter, will that work? I'm guessing not since it wants a server name, not an email address. So what should I put in there to use one of the many free Internet email sources?

All access to any free email sites I know about, is blocked here at work, so I cannot test this out.

[Snowman 6008]

kmagas,

I happen to have some experience with sending and receiving email. I have never used InetSendMail but every computer is capable of sending and receiving email. You can try localhost or 127.0.0.1 or your local IP address which you can get by typing ipconfig /all in the command line.

The IT department would need to give you some root level access to their server so they may not want to do that. If you're sending less than a few hundred emails per day, gmail will let you send email from their server. Just use your email address and port 465 along with your password http://www.jscape.com/articles/sending_email_smtp_ssl_gmail.html  . If you're going to get serious about sending email you may want to build up a server with postfix and courier installed, i recommend http://rackspaceclouds.com.

Again, if you're sending low volumes of email then you should be perfectly capable of sending mail from your local computer. All computers on a network should be capable of sending email.

[Snowman 6008]

It looks like inetsend mail doesn't support TLS or SSL  http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=180&thread.id=33794  . So you would not be able to use gmail.

[kmagas]

I tried this with a test program, using 127.0.0.1 and localhost as the server, sending myself a test email at my company address. We also tried to set up a freeware SMTP server which is assigned a dynamic IP address. Always get -4 System Socket error. Searching for this phrase I see others have had this error with sending email and FTP. I supect my IT dept will have to get involved.