# Pop3 Service



## jssch (Nov 27, 2000)

Currently, our users can send email to anyone, but only receive email from internal senders. We use the POP3 Service that came with Server 2003 and use Outlook 2003 as the client. Running test setting in Outlook says that there is no problem connecting with the incoming server. Is there anything I can look at specifically in Server 2003 POP3 service that tells me why there is no incoming email? I stopped and restarted the POP3 Service, but it did not correct it.

I sent an email from my yahoo account and it has not come back as rejected or delayed or anything. Another user sent one from Hotmail and it came back as delayed. 

Any help is appreciated.


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## Squashman (Apr 4, 2003)

POP 3 has nothing to do with actually sending the mail. All that does is push and pull email from your mail client and your SMTP server. You need to configure your SMTP server to send and receive emails correctly. And if you have any firewalls between you and the Internet, those have to be configured correctly as well.


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## jssch (Nov 27, 2000)

If all of a sudden we are not receiving emails unless they are internal, what should I check? We had been running pretty consistently for 9 months. And so I can learn, the POP3 service only works between the mail client and the SMTP server and my problem above then is in the SMTP and not the POP3. Am I on the right track?


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## Squashman (Apr 4, 2003)

If you are not receiving emails externally then it could be the SMTP server or a Firewall blocking incoming connections to the server. 

I don't know what SMTP server you are using but SendMail has the capability to only deal with Internal email and not allow any incoming from the Internet.

But I am betting it is a Firewall blocking it at your Gateway coming from the Internet.


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## jssch (Nov 27, 2000)

The last thing I noticed that was done before we started not receiving emails, was a disk cleanup on the C drive in Server 2003. Would the disk cleanup have affected the firewall in any way?


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## Squashman (Apr 4, 2003)

I don't know. I have no idea what you are using for a Firewall. I assume you mean a Software based Firewall. I doubt it is that though. Your POP email clients send mail to the SMTP server directly. That is the Outgoing server address in your email client. If your Mail Clients can access the server then I would assume it is not getting blocked by your Firewall.

If you can telnet into your SMTP server then you will know it is not getting blocked by the Server Firewall. But I suppose you could have some exception rule setup that allows all connections from your Internal IP network.

All I know right now is that you are running a Windows 2003 server. Hard to steer you in the right direction without knowing anything about your network or software you are using.


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