[Tutor] How to connect to an email server?

[Emile van Sebille]

Eduardo Vieira wrote:
> Hello, I'm fairly new to programming and Python and am trying to
> explore Python's email libraries. But I am having trouble making a
> connection with an email server, I guess.
> I'm running Windows XP, in a server environment. I have administrator
> privileges to my machine (not the server machine) to install, delete
> programs, for example. My email program (Outlook 2007) says that
> Exchange Server is albertapdc.express.local
> I would like to send emails using smtp in a script, but when I do
> these lines, I get an error:
> 
> import smtplib
> server = smtplib.SMTP('localhost') # if I replace 'localhost' with
> 'albertapdc.express.local' I get the same.
> 
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<input>", line 1, in <module>
>   File "C:\Python25\lib\smtplib.py", line 244, in __init__
>     (code, msg) = self.connect(host, port)
>   File "C:\Python25\lib\smtplib.py", line 310, in connect
>     raise socket.error, msg
> error: (10061, 'Connection refused')

The server refuses your connection attempt...

> 
> The same error 'Connection refused' I get trying IMAP:
> import imaplib
> se = imaplib.IMAP4('albertapdc.express.local')
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<input>", line 1, in <module>
>   File "C:\Python25\lib\imaplib.py", line 163, in __init__
>     self.open(host, port)
>   File "C:\Python25\lib\imaplib.py", line 230, in open
>     self.sock.connect((host, port))
>   File "<string>", line 1, in connect
> error: (10061, 'Connection refused')

The server again refuses your connection attempt...

> 
> What should I do? 

I'd start by pinging the server and running nmap on it.  Forget imap if 
your goal is sending mail.  If you don't see port 25 or 465 opened you 
won't make it much further without getting the mail system 
administrator's help.

HTH,

Emile


> And how can I know I can use smtp or IMAP?
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