[Tutor] How to connect to an email server?

[Tim Golden]

Eduardo Vieira wrote:
> Hello, I'm fairly new to programming and Python and am trying to
> explore Python's email libraries. But I am having trouble making a
> connection with an email server, I guess.
> I'm running Windows XP, in a server environment. I have administrator
> privileges to my machine (not the server machine) to install, delete
> programs, for example. My email program (Outlook 2007) says that
> Exchange Server is albertapdc.express.local
> I would like to send emails using smtp in a script, but when I do
> these lines, I get an error:
> 
> import smtplib
> server = smtplib.SMTP('localhost') # if I replace 'localhost' with
> 'albertapdc.express.local' I get the same.
> 
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<input>", line 1, in <module>
>   File "C:\Python25\lib\smtplib.py", line 244, in __init__
>     (code, msg) = self.connect(host, port)
>   File "C:\Python25\lib\smtplib.py", line 310, in connect
>     raise socket.error, msg
> error: (10061, 'Connection refused')
> 
> The same error 'Connection refused' I get trying IMAP:
> import imaplib
> se = imaplib.IMAP4('albertapdc.express.local')
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<input>", line 1, in <module>
>   File "C:\Python25\lib\imaplib.py", line 163, in __init__
>     self.open(host, port)
>   File "C:\Python25\lib\imaplib.py", line 230, in open
>     self.sock.connect((host, port))
>   File "<string>", line 1, in connect
> error: (10061, 'Connection refused')
> 
> What should I do? And how can I know I can use smtp or IMAP?


SMTP has to be enabled specifically on the Exchange Server:
it usually uses its own built-in protocols. It looks
as though your Exchange isn't running it. Either switch it
on (or ask your admins to do so) or look at using MAPI
or CDO instead.

TJG