Configure SMTP Relay on Windows Server 2019 with Plesk

Introduction

By default port 25 is blocked on all servers for outgoing emails. This is done in order to protect our network from abuse. There may be situations that you need to send out emails for notifications or transactional emails from the server. In such cases, you can use our SMTP relay which allows you to send 20,000 free outgoing emails every month.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to use our SMTP Relay (Smarthost) to send outgoing emails from your server.

Prerequisites

• Cloud VPS or Dedicated Server running Plesk on Windows Server 2019 inside Snel Network.
• You must be logged in to Plesk Administrative Panel as an administrative user.
• You must be logged in Windows Server 2019 as an administrative user

Step 1 – Log in to Plesk Control Panel

If you have a running Plesk server, simply browse https://your-snel-server-ip:8443 and log in as the administrator user. You may get a certificate warning as Plesk uses self-signed certificates to secure the connection. You can proceed to the web page as it is perfectly safe.

Step 2 – Navigate to SMTP Settings in Plesk

On the left pane of the dashboard, click on Tools and Settings option and then under Mail settings, click on External SMTP Server.

Step 3 – Configure External SMTP Server Settings

Under External SMTP Server Settings uncheck the checkbox saying Use the mail server installed with Plesk and the default mail account created by Plesk. It will make the custom mail server configuration fields visible.

Under Hostname or IP address, put smtprelay.snel.com and under port, put 587. Leave the username and password blank as the SMTP relay provided by Snel.com does not need auth for emails originating from a server on Snel.com network. Enable “SMTP server requires encrypted connection” by clicking to the checkbox. Click OK button to save the settings.

Step 4 – Sending Summary Report

Click on Tools & Settings and open Summary Report.  Since we do not use the mail server of Plesk we have to send an email from an existing email account, otherwise, our Smarthost will reject the email if it’s from a non-existing email account.

Enter your email and click on Send by Email. Once the email is sent you should see this output

Conclusion

In this short tutorial, we learned how to use SMTP Relay (Smarthost) provided by Snel. To learn more about the limits of sending email from the SMTP relay, please read this article.