Professional Microsoft IIS 8

Installing and Configuring an SMTP Server

Microsoft's SMTP Server has been deprecated on Windows Server 2012 and the management scripts have been removed. Although SMTP still works as it did in Windows 2008 R2, the management scripts are no longer available. Administrators and programmers should begin using System.Net.Smtp for sending mail, using an external SMTP Server such as a Microsoft Exchange Server.

Note

Information on System.Net.Smtp can be found online at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms164240.aspx.

The SMTP Server in IIS 8.0 provides mail transport functions between servers. It is designed for sending mail from the IIS 8.0 server to another SMTP Server and can act as a relay server as well. Although SMTP does send and receive mail messages, it is not designed as a “user” technology to provide a mailbox for messages. That functionality is provided by an e-mail server that implements a mailbox protocol such as POP3 or IMAP.

How SMTP Works

In Windows Server 2012, SMTP is an in-process service and runs in the Inetinfo.exe process. It monitors the SMTP port (25, by default) for incoming messages and the Pickup folder for outgoing messages. When a message appears in the Pickup folder, SMTP will determine the destination domain from the header. If the domain is local, the message is moved to the Drop folder. If not, the destination SMTP Server is determined through a DNS lookup for the mail exchanger (MX) record for the destination domain. Once the destination ...