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Making Drupal Send Emails via Live.com on Free Hosting Server

I wrote Exit Shared Hosting Early, but this post is for those who have no reason to pay for web hosting.

Drupal is allowed on many free hosting server such as http://www.66ghz.com. However, a free hosting service may not allow Drupal to send out emails due to protection against spamming. We want Drupal to send emails at least on two occations:
  1. to authenticate user during registration
  2. to email user via contact form
There is a work around to solve this problem.

Microsoft Live.com opens its SMTP server for those who have Hotmail account. And Drupal has a SMTP Authentication Support module that can utilize any SMTP server including Live.com's. You need to set the following in the module configuration:

SMTP server settings
  1. SMTP server: smtp.live.com
  2. SMTP port: 587
  3. Use encrypted protocol: Use TLS
SMTP Authentication
  1. Username: Your Hotmail email address i.e. foo@live.com
  2. Password: Your Hotmail password*

(*) One thing to note here is that you have to specify your Hotmail password. You may need to do so if you trust the free hosting service provider. Do not use fake or other than Hotmail email account.

WARNING Please configure with proper settings and do not use Live.com SMTP server for spamming or for other malpractice activities. Your Hotmail account may be revoked by Microsoft if they detect activities against the terms of service.

Comments

  1. Hey mike, really great thoughts on this topic, I recently blogged about this as well Drupal 8 SMTP Mail

    ReplyDelete

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