Configuring E-Mail Settings (Windows SharePoint Services 2.0)

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Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services sends alerts and other administration messages by using an SMTP mail server. You can specify which SMTP server to use and set the e-mail address to use for sending alerts and receiving replies for all sites by using the SharePoint Central Administration e-mail settings. You can also specify different settings for a specific virtual server. At either level, you can specify the following settings: outbound SMTP server, from address, reply-to address, and character set.

About Character Sets and E-Mail

When you configure e-mail settings, one of the settings you specify is the character set (also called "codepage") to use in e-mail messages. The default character set is 65001 (Unicode UTF-8), a standard character set that works well for most languages. You can choose a specific language code to apply instead, such as 1256 (Arabic (Windows)), but be aware that changing to a specific language code may cause the e-mail messages to be unreadable to clients of other language codes, for example, 1252 (Western European (Windows)).

Configuring an SMTP Server in Internet Information Services

If you want to use an SMTP server in Internet Information Services (IIS) to send outbound e-mail messages from Windows SharePoint Services, you must configure the SMTP server to allow anonymous access and to allow e-mail messages to be relayed. Note that the SMTP server you use must have Internet access to be able to send messages to external e-mail addresses.

Note

The SMTP service for IIS is not installed by default. If you want to use the SMTP service that comes with IIS and have not installed the SMTP service, or you do not see the default SMTP virtual server in IIS, you must install the SMTP service manually. For more information about installing, configuring, and managing the SMTP service, see the Help system for Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

To complete this procedure, you must be logged on as a member of the Administrators group on the local computer, or you must be logged on using an account that is both a member of the SharePoint administrators group and that has been granted permissions to administer IIS.

Configure an SMTP server in IIS for use with Windows SharePoint Services

  1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

  2. Click the plus sign (+) next to the server name that contains the SMTP server you want to configure.

  3. Right-click the SMTP virtual server you want to configure, and then click Properties.

  4. On the Access tab, under Access control, click Authentication.

  5. In the Authentication dialog box, under Select acceptable authentication methods for this resource, verify that Anonymous access is selected.

  6. Click OK.

  7. On the Access tab, under Relay restrictions, click Relay.

  8. Under Select which computer may relay through this virtual server, select Only the list below.

  9. Under Computers, click Add.

  10. In the Computer dialog box, select Single computer, and then, in the IP address box, type the IP address for your front-end Web server or single server running Windows SharePoint Services.

  11. Click OK to close the Computer dialog box.

  12. Repeat steps 9 through 11 for any additional front-end Web servers in your server farm.

    Note

    You do not need to add the IP addresses for the back-end database servers in your server farm.

  13. Click OK to close the Relay Restrictions dialog box.

  14. Click OK to close the Properties dialog box.

Using HTML Administration to Configure E-Mail Settings for Windows SharePoint Services

You use the Configure Default E-mail Server Settings page to specify e-mail settings for your server.

Specify e-mail settings for a server or server farm

  1. On the SharePoint Central Administration page, under Server Configuration, click Configure default e-mail server settings.

  2. In the Outbound SMTP server box, type the name of the SMTP mail server to use for sending messages.

  3. In the From e-mail address box, type the e-mail address to send e-mail messages from. This address appears in the From box of any e-mail messages from the server. No e-mail messages are sent to this address, so you can use an unmonitored e-mail address if you want.

  4. In the Reply-to e-mail address box, type the e-mail address that users can reply to. If a user replies to an e-mail message from the server, it will be sent to this address. You should use an address that is monitored for the reply-to address.

  5. In the Character set box, select the character set to use.

  6. Click OK.

You can also specify e-mail settings for a particular virtual server. The virtual server settings override the settings specified on the SharePoint Central Administration pages. Use these steps when you want a virtual server to use a different SMTP server for alerts than the one specified in the server settings.

Specify e-mail settings for a virtual server

  1. On the SharePoint Central Administration page, under Virtual Server Configuration, click Configure virtual server settings.

  2. On the Virtual Server List page, click the name of the virtual server you want to configure.

  3. Under Virtual Server Management, click Virtual server e-mail settings.

  4. In the Mail Settings section, in the Outbound SMTP server box, type the name of the SMTP mail server to use for sending messages.

  5. In the From address box, type the e-mail address to send e-mail messages from. This address appears in the From box of any e-mail messages from the server. No e-mail messages are sent to this address, so you can use an unmonitored e-mail address if you want.

  6. In the Reply-to address box, type the e-mail address that users can reply to.

    If a user replies to an e-mail message from the server, it will be sent to this address. You should use an address that is monitored for the reply-to address.

  7. In the Character set box, select the character set to use.

  8. Click OK.

Using the Command Line to Configure E-Mail Settings for Windows SharePoint Services

You can also configure e-mail settings from the command line, by using the email operation with Stsadm.exe. The email operation takes the following required parameters: outsmtpserver (the out-going SMTP server), fromaddress (the e-mail address to send messages from — can be an unmonitored address), replytoaddress (the e-mail address to send replies to — must be a monitored address), and codepage (the codepage to use).

In addition, you can use the optional url parameter to specify settings for a particular virtual server.

Note

The valid codepages are listed on the Configure Default E-mail Server Settings page in SharePoint Central Administration, in the Character set box. To specify a codepage on the command line, use the number for the character set, rather than the full name. For example, use the number 65001 to specify the codepage for 65001 (Unicode UTF-8).

The email operation uses the following syntax:

stsadm.exe -o email -outsmtpserver <smtp server>
  -fromaddress <from address> -replytoaddress <reply-to address>
  -codepage <codepage> [-url <url>]

For example, to configure the e-mail settings to use the server \\SMTPServer, and to use someone@example.com as both the from and reply-to address, you would use syntax similar to the following.

stsadm.exe -o email -outsmtpserver SMTPServer
  -fromaddress someone@example.com
  -replytoaddress someone@example.com
  -codepage 65001

To set the https://myserver virtual server to use codepage 65001, you would use syntax similar to the following.

stsadm.exe -o email -outsmtpserver SMTPServer
  -fromaddress someone@example.com -replytoaddress someone@example.com
  -codepage 65001 -url https://server_name