Why Bluehost does not support external SMTP

[agarcian]

I have set up my MX records to point to Google so GMail manages the email for my domain.

However, I cannot use SMTP over GMAIL to send messages in an account hosted in Bluehost.

WHY??????? It is such an important feature that should be offered.

Is anybody else in here experiencing the same need?

[timmc805]

Total Freakin' BS that they block SMTP for Google Apps. Sucks!

[stream]

They might just block SMTP relay by default to prevent spammers from hacking into your accounts and getting bluehost IP addresses blacklisted across the internet.

In other words, if you contact support they may manually activate this for your account...?

[TonyS]

No, outbound SMTP connections are disabled intentionally and won't be activated on request.

[alemcherry]

If you are suing google aps and have changed your MX record, why do you need to use Bluehost at all for emails?

You mean you can not make SMTP connections from a PHP script? If outbound SMTP connections are disabled, how do you send email from accounts that are hosted on Bluehost? I guess it needs some clarification.

[felgall]

If outbound SMTP connections are disabled, how do you send email from accounts that are hosted on Bluehost? I guess it needs some clarification.

You can call mail() to send mail from PHP scripts or install a library that generates the mail for you.

[lordvague]

Not to be a smart , but why does the web server crash commonly in the first place.

[felgall]

Not to be a smart , but why does the web server crash commonly in the first place.

What part of this thread are you referring to. There is no mention of server crashes in this thread that I can see apart from yours.

[Jolly]

Between this thread and another which has discussed Gmail, I've now pointed my MX records to Gmail and set up an email account. However, I notice that emails sent from my Wordpress installation still show up as username@boxXXX.bluehost.com.

I wonder if anyone knows of a way that the Gmail address that I've just created can be substitued for this ugly one?

Thanks for any help.

[kgod]

You can call mail() to send mail from PHP scripts or install a library that generates the mail for you.

I'm told that spam filters like postini often kick in when using call mail() instead of smtp server

can you comment on that or explain your method a little more?

Not being able to fully integrate our sites with Google Apps is a really big deal to a lot of your clients i think

[felgall]

I wonder if anyone knows of a way that the Gmail address that I've just created can be substitued for this ugly one?

The @boxXXX.bluehost.com address only gets used when the sending address doesn't exist. If you send emails from an actual email address that exists then the actual email address will be used.

[halfpastzero]

While it's true that Bluehost doesn't allow SMTP connections from a script or application running on the server to a third party SMTP server, it's still possible to use Google Apps for your mail and use Bluehost for email generated from scripts.

As long as you have your MX records correctly pointed at Google, you can use the mail() function in php scripts or make a local connection to the SMTP server running on the Bluehost server.

If you use the mail() function, the server will check the From: header against existing mail accounts set up in the cpanel regardless of where your mail is delivered. As long as the address you want to appear in the From: address exists in the Email Accounts page or the Forwarders page.

If you would like to make a local connection to the SMTP server running on the Bluehost server you can use "localhost" (without the quotes) as the SMTP hostname. 25 is the port number. You will also need to use SMTP authentication meaning it needs to login to the SMTP server with a username and password. The username is the email address you are sending from. Again, it needs to exist in the Email Accounts page in cPanel. The password is the password setup for the account in cPanel.

With both of these methods, as long as your MX Entry page is correctly configured, the Bluehost server will still deliver mail generated from itself to the server set up in your MX record destination.