Do I need a email server? Please help

Question

Hi,
currently my school project needs to create a email system that send reminder and notice to users. However, we are unable to tap the school email server, I am using my own pop3 account (my ISP). I dun think it is a good way. Do i need an email server to make the system more appropiate? If yes, any email server to recommend?? Please guide..thanks

Answer 1

you don't need an email server to send mail. Just write a small "main" class that opens a socket to whatever domain you're sending to (ex: hotmail.com) on port 25. Then just use all the SMTP commands:
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc0821.txt
Basically, you'll have a conversation with their server, something like this:
//FOR READING WHAT THE SERVER SAYS
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(sock.getInputStream()));
//SO YOU CAN RESPOND
PrintStream out = new PrintStream(sock.getOutputStream() );
//STORE THEIR RESPONSES
String strResponse;
//SEND IT CONNECTION OK, YOU REACHED...
out.println("220 mail.myserver.com SMTP Server (Billy Bob's Personal Server v5.0) ready");
out.flush();
strResponse = in.readLine();
if (strResponse.equals("EHLO") || strResponse.equals("HELO"))
     out.println("250 mail.myserver.com");
     out.flush();
etc...Now, it won't actually be "EHLO" or "HELO", it'll probably be that plus their name or something. So maybe: "EHLO mail.yahoo.com". Anyways, don't worry about all that. You can get that info at the link I put above. it'll do the assignment, and be more fun!