python SMTP server

[Benjamin Niemann]

Cliff Wells wrote:

> On Sun, 2005-07-31 at 13:14 +0200, Benjamin Niemann wrote:
> 
>> But you should be aware of the fact that (if you send mail from a dialup
>> machine without going through a relay server) your mails will quickly be
>> marked as spam - I hope you do not intend to send spam...
> 
> Yah, Postfix on my servers uses several dnsbl's which automatically
> reject home users (unless they authenticate first).  Even if this isn't
> the case for the majority of SMTP servers today I expect it won't be
> long before it is.
> 
> As an aside, I will say that many SMTP servers that service home users
> (i.e. Comcast, et al) limit the amount of mail that you can send within
> a defined period.

Or completely block outgoing traffic on port 25 except to their own relay...

> By using a local SMTP server to proxy, your app can 
> queue up a large amount of mail in a much shorter period.  It won't
> necessarily go out any faster, but at least your app won't be tied up
> waiting for the mail to be accepted.  So there is perhaps one useful
> (beyond learning and fun) application for using a local SMTP server.

It would be interesting what the intention of the OP is. I just stumpled
upon a similar problem. The prog I'm currently working on has a function to
report crashes back to me. Originally these reports where sent by mail - no
problem on UNIX/Linux hosts where you can assume to have a working MDA on
localhost. But what to do on Windows systems?!? Ask for a SMTP server
during installation? Confusing as the program itself is totally unrelated
to email. In this case you _could_ deliver the mail directly to my MX
host... But instead of this I installed a small CGI on my website that
sends the mails to me and gets the data via HTTP POST from my app.

-- 
Benjamin Niemann
Email: pink at odahoda dot de
WWW: http://www.odahoda.de/