Question : Error reading from SMTP host in SharePoint

Experts,

I have a SharePoint installation that will not sent out emails. The installation is a 3 server farm in AD account creation mode: 1 web server, an AD/DNS server, and SQL Server. All servers are Windows 2003 Servers.

Using SharePoint Central Administration I configured email settings for the virtual server to be:

Outbound SMTP server: WebMachine.InternalDNSDomain.org
From address: [email protected]
Reply-to address: [email protected]
Character set: 65001 (Unicode UTF-8)

The SMTP virtual server in IIS has the IP address of the NIC card and has the domain 'WebMachine.InternalDNSDomain.org' same as what is specified in SharePoint Central Administration. There is no POP3 set up so this server does not receive email and has no email accounts. Here is other info:
Access Authentication: Anonymous
Connection: 'Only the list below' selected with no entries
Relay: 'Only the list below' selected with no entries

Advanced Delivery:
Masquerade Domain: MyDomain.org
Fully-qualified domain name: WebMachine.InternalDNSDomain.org   (Check DNS says it is valid)

LDAP routing is NOT enabled
Security has accounts: Administrators, NT Authority\Local Service, NT Authority\Network Service, InternalDNSDomain\SharePoint_admin

I can see the WebMachine Host (A) record in the DNS.


I reproduce the failure by logging onto a SharePoint site as administrator, go to manage users and add user. I specify an email and select say the 'Reader' account and go to the next page where a message is entered. When I click 'Finish' the response is: Error reading from SMTP host 'WebMachine.InternalDNSDomain.org'.

If I instead use an AD account that already exists in the system it still fails but the message is this: The user or users have been added successfully, but there was an error in sending the e-mail message. The server may not be set up correctly to send e-mail. To verify that e-mail is configured correctly, contact your server administrator.

The SMTP server is the Windows SMTP service. I am fairly confident that this SMTP server is setup properly because I have an ASP.NET registration page that runs side-by-side with this SharePoint installation which sends emails out successfully. (I receive them)  It uses the mail message class in ASP.NET 1.1.


How can I get this to work? Is there some additional setup that is necessary in the DNS perhaps for this to work such as an MX record?


Thank you for the help.

Answer : Error reading from SMTP host in SharePoint

Hi.
Remember that the Sharepoint makes a Connection  trough port 25 to send the mail.
Try to make a telnet  from the sharepoint machine to  port 25 of the SMTP server (Like if you where sending anonymous email) to see if the connection is open to accept mails from that server.

I notice that in the SMTP properties you have
Connection: 'Only the list below' selected and have no entries  and in the  Relay: 'Only the list below' selected with no entries, so ,  Making a Telnet to that port you can see if the SMTP service is accepting connections from the Sharepoint Machine

You can try with an MX record on the DNS Server, but this is not a request if you are only relying.
If the connection is closed or you get a relying error add the IP address from the Sharepoint Machine to the List of connect or relaying where appropiate.