jrpfinch wrote: > Thank you. I have just realised I completely misunderstand how SMTP > servers work. From what I can tell, when you run the cookbook script > it listens locally on port 8025. > > You then have to configure a Linux (in my case) account with a username > and password so my external piece of software (on another Windows > machine) can log in and use the SMTP server. > > Then I write the some code in the cookbook example to redirect any mail > content to the MS SQL server database. > > Note that the external piece of software can only talk SMTP - this is > why I am having to develop this script. > > Does this sound sensible? Any tips on how to configure my Linux box (I > don't have much experience with Linux either)? > > Many thanks > > Jon > Presumably you can configure the external piece of software at least to the extent of setting the email address it delivers to?
In that case it will be *much* simpler to set up an account on a mail server to receive these emails. That way the server will be available whenever the SMTP-based sender wants or needs to send mail, and you can use Python to collect the emails in batched using the POP protocol, as a client. Once you receive the email messages then yes, it's perfectly practical to save the content in a SQL server database. mxODBC is one possible driver package (though it requires you to purchase a license for commercial use), and I seem to remember there's another one called adodbapi that is open source. There are almost certainly others, but it's a while since I used SQL Server with Python. regards Steve -- Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119 Holden Web LLC/Ltd http://www.holdenweb.com Skype: holdenweb http://del.icio.us/steve.holden Blog of Note: http://holdenweb.blogspot.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
