Using Eudora and Other POP Mail Programs with SCN

Desktop PC Mail Programs
POP and SMTP Server Addresses
Requirements for Using POP Mail
Check for New Mail Before Sending Mail
Other Causes of Rejected Sent Mail
Using Pine Folders with POP Mail Programs
Using POP Mail and SCN Web Mail

Desktop PC Mail Programs

You can use a Windows or Macintosh mail program to send and retrieve your SCN mail, through a PPP connection with any commercial Internet provider. You can use Eudora, Pegasus, Netscape Mail or any other standard mail program that uses POP3 (Post Office Protocol) to receive mail and SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) to send mail.

POP and SMTP Server Addresses

POP3 server (receive) address: mail.scn.org

SMTP server (send) address: smtp.scn.org

In your mail program, look for a field labeled POP or POP3 or Incoming Mail and change the server name there to mail.scn.org.

Look for a field labeled SMTP or Outgoing Mail and change the server name there to smtp.scn.org. You might need to restart your mail program for these changes to take effect.

Requirements for Using POP Mail

PPP:

SCN itself doesn't provide PPP dialup connections, so you can't use a POP mail program when you dial in to SCN's modem number. You must have a TCP/IP (PPP) connection to the Internet through another Internet provider.

SCN mail not forwarded:

To retrieve your mail from SCN's POP server, you must not be forwarding your mail from SCN to a mailbox on another system. To see whether your SCN mail is forwarded, login to scn.org via dialup or telnet, and pick "E-Mail Menu" from the main menu. Then go to the "Mail Forwarding" menu. Pick "Remove Forwarding." You don't need to remove mail forwarding to send outgoing mail through SCN.

Check for New Mail Before Sending Mail

When you login with your mail program, you must first check for new mail before you can send outgoing mail through SCN. If you get a "Relaying denied" message or other message saying that you can't send mail, check for new mail first and then send mail.

Checking for new mail sets a 30 minute timer that allows your mail program to send mail from the same Internet address that you used to check for new mail. This helps prevent spammers from routing mail through SCN to addresses on other systems, because the spammers don't have login accounts on SCN and can't check mail.

Each time you check your mail, the timer is reset. If you try to send mail to a non-SCN e-mail address after the timer has expired, you will see the "Relaying denied" message. Simply check your mail again to reset the timer. Then you should be able to re-send the message. Sending mail doesn't reset the timer. Only logging in and checking for new mail again resets the timer.

Some mail readers (for example, Pegasus) let you check and send mail at the same time, with one click. This can cause messages to be refused (550 - relaying denied) under two circumstances:

1. If you have no new mail to download, your mail program might instantly send mail before SCN has time (a few seconds) to set the timer after your mail program checked for new mail. To avoid this, you can check for new mail and then separately send mail a few seconds later.
2. If your program sends outgoing mail before it checks for new mail, the sent mail will be refused if the SCN mail timer isn't already set. Simply send the mail again (within 30 minutes), and it will be accepted, because the program did check for new mail after it first tried to send mail.

This change to SMTP mail processing was made in December, 1998 to reduce spam. It doesn't mean that you won't receive spam. But spammers now can't "launder" their bulk mail by routing it through the SCN mail server by some of the means that they used in the past.

Other Causes of Rejected Sent Mail

AOL:

AOL and some other large Internet services periodically change your connection's IP address while you are online. When this happens, you won't be able to continue with your mail until you login again from the new IP address with your POP mail program.

Free ISPs:

Some free ISP services block all outgoing SMTP mail that you send while connected to them. If you use a free ISP, check its FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page or other documentation. If your ISP blocks SMTP mail (port 25), then you might have to use SCN's Web mail.

Regular ISPs:

Many ISPs now prevent mail relaying. This means that you must send mail through the ISP's own mail server, and cannot send it directly through another server such as smtp.scn.org. Your ISP's outgoing mail server might be named something like mail.myisp.com. See your ISP's FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page to make sure. In any case, you can still retrieve your incoming mail directly from SCN's POP mail server (mail.scn.org).

If your ISP's anti-relaying measures prevent sending mail through smtp.scn.org, then try sending mail through your commercial ISP's own mail server instead of smtp.scn.org. First, try setting the From: address to your SCN e-mail address, and sending the mail through your ISP's mail server.

If that doesn't work, then set the From: address to your e-mail address at your ISP (you@isp.com) and your Reply-To: address to your scn.org mail address. Not everyone's mail program is set up to give precedence to the Reply-To: address over the From: address. Since some people's mail programs might reply to your ISP (From:) address instead of your SCN (Reply-To:) address, you might want to forward mail from your ISP address to your SCN address, if you use this method.

If you cannot send mail from a regular commercial ISP to SCN's SMTP server, and the above steps do not work, then please report this to help@scn.org.

Less Common Problems:

You might have trouble sending a Cc: to the same e-mail address that you used as the From: address. SCN's SMTP server also might reject a message if the message has a poorly formed return e-mail address.

Using POP Mail and SCN Web Mail

The WebMail program reads your mail from SCN's POP server. Mail programs that run on your home PC, like Eudora, also retrieve your mail from the POP server. The main difference is that WebMail leaves each message on the server after you've read it, unless you specifically tell it to delete the message.

Usually, you'd set up your home PC's POP mail program to automatically delete messages from the server after downloading them to your PC. But sometimes you might want to leave your mail on the SCN server for a time, for example when you're traveling.

Check to make sure that your home PC's POP mail program is set up to retrieve all of your messages, not just the "new" messsages that you haven't read with WebMail. Some programs, like Pegasus, have a checkbox option setting for this.

Updated February 6, 2001 - help@scn.org