This means that you're not allowed to use whatever server you have specified
in your Outgoing Mail Server field to send mail.
A relay occurs when a mail server determines that the recipient address is
not local to the server, so it has to send it somewhere else. For example
an AOL mail server looking at an email addressed to someone with a Yahoo
email address--AOL's mail server does not host @yahoo.com addresses, so it
has to send that message on somewhere else. This is a relay.
When you send email, this is pretty much what happens.
- Your mail program connects to the outgoing mail (SMTP) server and says,
"Hi, I have a message for (e-mail address removed)."
- The SMTP server determines whether or not it hosts mail for somewhere.com
itself or if it has to send the mail elsewhere in order for it to be
delivered (this would be the relay).
- If somewhere.com is local to the server the message is delivered to the
destination mailbox and the process is complete. If somewhere.com is NOT
local, then the SMTP server looks to see where you're connecting from.
Servers are configured with lists of who is allowed to use the server as a
relay and who is not.
- If you are coming from someplace that is allowed to relay mail through the
server, the server then performs a internet lookup to determine where mail
addressed to users @somewhere.com is supposed to be delivered and attempts
to make a connection to that server.
- When the connection is established, the remote server (we'll call it
email.somewhere.com) does the same checks your server made when you
connected to it. "Do I host thist domain?" In this case the server does
host it, so it will accept the message and deliver it to the user's mailbox.
- If however you are connecting from a network that is NOT in the "allowed
to relay" list on the SMTP server, the server will close the connection with
the error you specified: mail relay is not allowed.
Internet providers tend to lock their mail servers down so that only their
customers can use their server to send email. This is done so spammers
cannot connect to their servers and send spam all over the internet (servers
that can allow such a thing are called "open relays" and are often listed on
internet blacklists). This means that if for example you were a AT&T DSL
customer, you could not use Comcast's outgoing mail server to send mail to
someone at AOL--Comcast's server would first determine that it would have to
function as a relay to deliver the message to AOL's mail server, then it
would look to see where you were coming from (AT&T) to see if you were
allowed to use it as a relay (which you're not), and it would return the
"mail relay is not allowed" message.
So the error you're getting is generated from whatever server you have
entered in the Outgoing Mail Server field in your email account properties.
Outlook is connecting to this server and saying, "Hey, I have a message I
want to send to (e-mail address removed)," the server checks to see if you're
allowed to relay mail, and apparently is saying that you're not. Contact
your internet provider to determine what settings you should have entered in
your email account properties.
One note however: If you are only having this problem when trying to send
mail to a particular recipient, the problem could be on their end. If the
remote server that the internet is being told to send mail to is not
configured properly, it may incorrectly think it has to relay the mail
elsewhere, and this message would be generated. This doesn't happen often
however, and when it does it affects *all* users of that server, so it tends
to get identified and resolved pretty quickly.
Joe
