ECN: Secure SMTP E-Mail Services

SMTP servers handle transferring email from user workstation email programs (such as Thunderbird or Outlook) to the server and from the server to a similar SMTP server at the destination address of the email.

When sending email, ECN's secure SMTP server (smtp.ecn.purdue.edu) will only recognize Engineering students, faculty and staff login names. Therefore, email relaying can be permitted because off campus spam abusers will not have access. This SMTP server can be used by Engineering users to relay (send) email from workstations on non purdue.edu networks (such as gte.net) to non purdue.edu addresses (such as sam@aol.com). Please note, some ISP's (such as MSN) require customers to use MSN SMTP servers and will not allow customers to use the ECN SMTP server. Also note that computers on the Purdue campus (including those connected to Purdue's wireless network) are on purdue.edu networks.

The SMTP server only works with email programs that support SSL (also called TLS) and user authentication. The following email program versions (and newer) support SSL and authentication: Netscape 4.7, Eudora 5.1, Outlook 2000, and Mozilla Mail. Users of older email readers may need to upgrade before using smtp.ecn.purdue.edu.

To use the ECN secure SMTP server, specify smtp.ecn.purdue.edu as your SMTP server and select SSL (or TLS) and authentication in your email program's configuration.

For additional information, see:

ECN Email Primer
Microsoft Outlook 2007
Mozilla Thunderbird