Sending E-mail from Home or while Traveling

When using your life.illinois.edu e-mail account and your computer is connected to a network other than the life.illinois.edu network, you can send e-mail in two ways.

One is to use our webmail server at:

The other is to configure your e-mail software (like Thunderbird or Eudora) to send mail via the SMTP AUTH protocol on the 'submission' port.

SMTP AUTH allows e-mail software to send along your login name and password to authorize you to send mail through our system. SMTP AUTH stands for Simple Mail Transport Protocol AUTHorization.

Normally, to avoid abuse by spammers, we accept all mail from the life.illinois.edu network to all destinations, and mail from all destinations to be delivered to accounts here. But we can't accept mail from the insightbb.com network that's addressed to the aol.com network, for instance, because that would mean that anyone from any network could send mail to any other location, which is just the sort of system spammers like to find to do their work for them.

When your e-mail software is configured to use the SMTP AUTH protocol, then our e-mail system will know that you're a valid user here and we will accept any mail from your computer.

TLS stands for Transport Layer Security. It's used to encrypt the exchange of information between your computer and our e-mail system. When your computer is on a remote network, and you use e-mail software like Eudora to pick up your mail, your login, password and messages can be passed across the network in plain text, and it's possible for people to snoop on the remote network or places along the way. TLS will encrypt the information so that it is only understandable at the two endpoints (your computer and our e-mail system). Using SMTP AUTH will require using TLS, so that your login and password are not plainly visible on remote networks. (If you've been using our webmail server, then you've already been using TLS to encrypt your data. That's the meaning of the https:// at the beginning of the URL.)

Recommended e-mail client software for use with SMTP AUTH and TLS are:

• Thunderbird
• Eudora
• Apple Mail (bundled with Mac OS X)

Some common situations that allow you to benefit from SMTP AUTH and TLS are:

• You have a home computer with e-mail client software (like Eudora) and a high-speed network connection from Ameritech, InsightBB, Volo, etc.... Until now, you've had to use your high-speed network provider's e-mail server. Now you can hand off your outgoing messages directly to the life.illinois.edu server.
• You have a laptop that you carry between different networks. You use e-mail client software but you have to use one SMTP (outgoing mail) server on one network, and another SMTP server on another network. Now you can use the smtp.life.illinois.edu SMTP server from any network.
• You are using a life.illinois.edu e-mail account but you are on a different illinois.edu network (i.e.: med.illinois.edu, biotech.illinois.edu, beckman.illinois.edu). In the past special configurations had to be made in each case. Now everyone can configure their software to use SMTP AUTH.

Note: Many Internet Service Providers are now blocking access to the port commonly used for sending email (port 25). When configuring your e-mail software for SMTP, we recommend also changing the SMTP port to 587 (the 'submission' port). This will allow you to send mail under most circumstances.

Eudora 6.2.3 for Mac OS X

Select "Settings" from the "Special" menu.
Click on the "Sending Mail" tab along the left.
    Set "SMTP Server" to "smtp.life.illinois.edu".
    Check "Use submission port (587)".
    Check "Allow Authorization".
Click on the "SSL" tab along the left.
    Set "SSL for SMTP" to "Required (TLS)"

Apple Mail for Mac OS X 10.5

Select "Preferences" from the "Mail" menu.
The "Account Information" tab (along the top) should be selected by default.
From the "Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP)" pull-down menu, choose "Edit Server List".
  A new window should appear.  
  You may already have an entry for smtp.life.illinois.edu (or if not use the '+' button to create one).  
  Then click on the Advanced tab here.
    Set "Server port" to 587 (instead of 25).
    Check "Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)".
    Set "Authentication" to "Password".
    Enter your e-mail login (the part before "@life.illinois.edu") in the "User Name" field.
    Enter your e-mail password in the "Password" field.

Eudora 7 for Windows

Select "Options" from the "Tools" menu.
Click on the "Sending Mail" tab along the left.
    Set "SMTP Server" to "smtp.life.illinois.edu".
    Check "Allow Authorization".
    Check "Use submission port (587)".
    Set "Secure Sockets when Sending" to "Required, STARTTLS"

Thunderbird

Select "Account Settings" from the "Edit" or "Tools" menu.
Select "Outgoing Server (SMTP)" along the left.
    Set "Server Name" to "smtp.life.illinois.edu".
    Set "Port" to 587.
    Check "Use name and password".
    Set "User Name" to your e-mail login (the part before "@life.illinois.edu").
    Set "Use secure connection" to "TLS".

Outlook Express 6

Select "Accounts" from the "Tools" menu.
Select your mail account from the list and click the Properties button.
    Select the Servers tab along the top.
        Set "Outgoing mail (SMTP)" to "smtp.life.illinois.edu".
        Check "My server requires authentication" in the Outgoing Mail Server section.
    Click on the Advanced tab along the top.
        Set "Outgoing mail (SMTP)" to 587.
        Check "This server requires a secure connection (SSL)" under Outgoing Mail (SMTP).
        (Don't check this setting for Incoming Mail.)