At least that is what I gather is required in the SMTP "Username" field in Setup -- from looking at other forum discussions re SMTP setup. Couldn't find a simple description of the field in online help.
Why do I need to provide my email password?
Why do I need to provide my email password?
I must be missing something. I can't figure out why this camera software would need to know the password for my email account in order to simply send an email to me.
At least that is what I gather is required in the SMTP "Username" field in Setup -- from looking at other forum discussions re SMTP setup. Couldn't find a simple description of the field in online help.
At least that is what I gather is required in the SMTP "Username" field in Setup -- from looking at other forum discussions re SMTP setup. Couldn't find a simple description of the field in online help.
Re: Why do I need to provide my email password?
Hello wally ,
The camera uses your email account to send emails through. So basically the camera is an email client like the GMAIL app in a smartphone or outlook program in Windows. It need the email password to authenticate with the server and send email.
The camera uses your email account to send emails through. So basically the camera is an email client like the GMAIL app in a smartphone or outlook program in Windows. It need the email password to authenticate with the server and send email.
Re: Why do I need to provide my email password?
Hi Melvin,
Thanks for your reply.
I understand your description of the camera software acting like an email app - yep that makes sense. But I still don't get why it needs to have this behavior. Why can't it just send me an email like anyone else? What else does it do?
You said it "send(s) emails through" .. what does it send them through to?
Thanks for your reply.
I understand your description of the camera software acting like an email app - yep that makes sense. But I still don't get why it needs to have this behavior. Why can't it just send me an email like anyone else? What else does it do?
You said it "send(s) emails through" .. what does it send them through to?
Re: Why do I need to provide my email password?
OK I'll answer my own question ..
It needs to log into an email account because there is no central amcrest smtp mail server/generator/account that would act as the send side.
It needs to log into an email account because there is no central amcrest smtp mail server/generator/account that would act as the send side.
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wjcarpenter
- Posts: 9
- Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2016 7:26 pm
Re: Why do I need to provide my email password?
Well, yes an no.
If you are connecting to the SMTP server that "owns" the recipient email address, you probably do not have to authenticate at all. After all, the many people who are sending you email are not authenticating on your server. It would certainly be possible for someone to require authentication from all comers on port 587 (the SMTP submission port), but that doesn't happen on port 25.
If you are connecting to an SMTP server where you have account in order to send to some other email addresses that are not "owned" by that server, you will certainly need to authenticate.
If you are connecting to the SMTP server that "owns" the recipient email address, you probably do not have to authenticate at all. After all, the many people who are sending you email are not authenticating on your server. It would certainly be possible for someone to require authentication from all comers on port 587 (the SMTP submission port), but that doesn't happen on port 25.
If you are connecting to an SMTP server where you have account in order to send to some other email addresses that are not "owned" by that server, you will certainly need to authenticate.
Re: Why do I need to provide my email password?
wjcarpenter ..
You seem to know a lot more about SMTP protocols than I do. And your statement reflects my initial take on this. However I expect a standard email header needs to have a valid address in the "from" field.
These cameras appear to have enough native code to generate an SMTP request but not the capacity to provide a validate-able origin address. So the question is what is required to supply a valid "from" address? If they hard code something like "mailserver@amcrest.com" and that server later goes away .. it breaks that camera function (unless updated firmware).
It's easier for them and more flexible for the user to put the responsibility for this on the user.
You seem to know a lot more about SMTP protocols than I do. And your statement reflects my initial take on this. However I expect a standard email header needs to have a valid address in the "from" field.
These cameras appear to have enough native code to generate an SMTP request but not the capacity to provide a validate-able origin address. So the question is what is required to supply a valid "from" address? If they hard code something like "mailserver@amcrest.com" and that server later goes away .. it breaks that camera function (unless updated firmware).
It's easier for them and more flexible for the user to put the responsibility for this on the user.
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wjcarpenter
- Posts: 9
- Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2016 7:26 pm
Re: Why do I need to provide my email password?
My camera (721S) has a field for "sender", and that's what gets used for both envelope From and header From. That's the best situation.
SMTP is a simple concept (after all, the "S" stands for "simple"), but when you drill into the details of what is actually legal, what is illegal, and what is legal but ill-advised, it can get quite complicated. (RFC-5321 and RFC-5322 these days.) I don't want to go into too long an explanation here because it would just be showing off (with the risk that someone who knows more would come along and correct me.
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An SMTP message has two "from" addresses, which usually match but don't have to. There's the one you see in the email "From:" header. It's sometimes called the "header From" to distinguish it from the one you don't normally see called the "envelope From". The envelope From is what is carried along, link by link, as the message makes its way to the destination. As another wrinkle, the envelope From can be "<>", which means nobody (when you get an email failure bounce-back message, it usually has this).
The header From is required to be present, but there is a lot of variation in what happens if it is missing or has a malformed or bogus value. It really depends on the software receiving the message. In general (hard to say what percentage), the message will be accepted anyhow. The envelope From is generally the more important value, and many receiving servers will do various validation checks on it before accepting the message.
SMTP is a simple concept (after all, the "S" stands for "simple"), but when you drill into the details of what is actually legal, what is illegal, and what is legal but ill-advised, it can get quite complicated. (RFC-5321 and RFC-5322 these days.) I don't want to go into too long an explanation here because it would just be showing off (with the risk that someone who knows more would come along and correct me.
)An SMTP message has two "from" addresses, which usually match but don't have to. There's the one you see in the email "From:" header. It's sometimes called the "header From" to distinguish it from the one you don't normally see called the "envelope From". The envelope From is what is carried along, link by link, as the message makes its way to the destination. As another wrinkle, the envelope From can be "<>", which means nobody (when you get an email failure bounce-back message, it usually has this).
The header From is required to be present, but there is a lot of variation in what happens if it is missing or has a malformed or bogus value. It really depends on the software receiving the message. In general (hard to say what percentage), the message will be accepted anyhow. The envelope From is generally the more important value, and many receiving servers will do various validation checks on it before accepting the message.