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This is the support site for Andrews & Arnold Ltd, a UK Internet provider. Information on these pages is generally for our customers but may be useful to others, enjoy!

Enable TLS on smtp.aa.net.uk: Difference between revisions

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=Brief Overview=
This article as about enabling TLS in your existing email program when sending email through the AAISP email servers (smtp.aa.net.uk). If you are setting up an email program from scratch then simply select/tick the options to use TLS. This page gives help when you want to edit an existing account to enable TLS.
In short, we recommend that all customers use [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security TLS] (Also known as STARTTLS) when sending email through our servers. Here are our recommended settings, which you may want to check against the settings that you currently have in your email program:
{| class="wikitable"
!colspan="3"|Outgoing email settings
|-
!Outgoing Server
|'''smtp.aa.net.uk'''
|-
!Port
|587 or 25. Given a choice, use 587
|-
!Security
|STARTTLS (sometimes called TLS)
|-
!Authentication
|Password, and use the same username & password as your IMAP/POP3 settings.
|}
 
=TLS=
This article asis about enabling TLS in your existing email program when sending email through the AAISP email servers (smtp.aa.net.uk). If you are setting up an email program from scratch then simply select/tick the options to use TLS or STARTTLS. This page gives help when you want to edit an existing account to enable TLS.
 
==Why do this?==
 
==Certificate Warnings==
You should not get a certificate warning when using our outgoing mail server, if you do then please check that the smtp server is set to: smtp.aa.net.uk as other variations will give a warning that the server name does not match the security certificate. If you do get a warning then that may mean that you are not talking to our servers and you should check the error message and the certificate carefully. If in doubt then please contact Support.
 
== What we don't support==
=How to Enable TLS=
We don't support port 465 as this is deprecated and replaced with using TLS or STARTTLS on ports 25 or 587.
[[File:Starttls.png|none|frame|Example TLS setting from an email program.]]
Different email clients have different ways to enable TLS, usually it is just a tick box in the email account settings. Here are some pointers:
 
== What if my email program or device doesn't support TLS? ==
Modern email programs that you use on a computer or mobile device should be capable of supporting modern TLS ciphers - if not then the program is probably very old, out of date and will have other problems. It would be best to upgrade - If you're not sure, then Mozilla's Thunderbird is a good choice.
 
Some devices such as webcams, DVRs, and so on the want to send email may lack TLS features. If this is the case, then do check for firmware updates.
 
If you are sending from outside of our network, i.e. using another broadband or mobile provider, then you will be using authentication. This involves sending your username and password across the internet to our servers. This should be done with TLS enabled as otherwise your credentials could be seen by other people who could steal your password and cause mayhem!
 
At the moment (2016-12), for legacy reasons, we still do allow customers to send authenticated email without TLS - this is a risk and it is a feature we want to disable in the near future. We will then only allow authenticated email over TLS. If a customer needs to send email when not using our broadband services and cannot support TLS then we'd have to suggest to use the email services provided by the ISP you are connected to.
 
We do allow customers on our broadband services to send email without authentication and this can be with TLS enabled or disabled, but we'd always suggest enabling TLS
 
Here is a summary table of sending email on A&A and other 3rd party broadband providers:
 
{| class="wikitable"
!colspan="34"|OutgoingRequirements emailfor settings (Sendingsending email) through smtp.aa.net.uk
|-
!Outgoing Server
|'''smtp.aa.net.uk'''
|-
!Broadband
!TLS
!Authentication
!Port
|587 or 25
|-
!A&A Broadband
!Security
|Optional, but recommended
|TLS or STARTTLS
|Optional, but recommended
|587
|-
!Non A&A Broadband
|Required
|Required
|587
|-
!Authentication
|Password, and use the same username & password as your IMAP/POP3 settings.
|}
 
=How to Enable TLS=
[[File:Starttls.png|none|frame|Example TLS setting from an email program.]]
Different email clients have different ways to enable TLS, usually it is just a tick box in the email account settings. Here are some pointers:
 
== AAISP Webmail ==
Load Outlook then go to:
Tools -> Account Settings... -> Change -> More Settings -> Advanced -> Set "Use the following type of encrypted connection: TLS""
 
== Eudora ==
We'd suggest not using Eudora as it is old and unsupported software which is probably using outdated encryption ciphers.
 
Qualcomm is no longer developing Eudora OSE and its community support forum no longer exists. Furthermore, the last released version is based on an old version of Thunderbird which is no longer supported, has many bugs and performance problems, and known security issues. Users might like to try Thunderbird as an alternative email program.
Source [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Eudora_OSE wiki.mozilla.org]
 
== OSX Mail ==
From the phone, go to:
Settings -> Mail, Contact, Calendars -> Choose your email account -> Advanced -> SMTP -> Set "Use SSL: ON"
 
== iPad default mail app ==
From the iPad go to:
Settings -> Mail -> Accounts -> Choose your email account -SMTP -> Choose the Primary Server -> set Host Name=smtp.aa.net.uk, use SSL=On, Server Port=587
 
== Android (possibly older) default Email app==
 
== Mutt ==
Mutt will your your machine's local MTA (ege.g. sendmail, exim, postfix etc.) - so look at the documentation for that for more information.
 
Typically, you can enable TLS with the following entries in your .muttrc:
<syntaxhighlight lang="shell">
set ssl_starttls=yes
set ssl_force_tls=yes
To test if TLS is actually working, you can send yourself an email then look at the [[Email Viewing Headers|headers]] and look for the Received lines showing the connection between your computer and smtp.aa.net.uk:
 
<syntaxhighlight lang="shell">
Received: from andrew.ec.aa.net.uk ([2001:8b0:1:ec::8])
by smtp.aa.net.uk with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_128_GCM_SHA256:128)
An email sent without TLS would look similar, but would not show any TLS information.
 
<syntaxhighlight lang="shell">
Received: from andrew.ec.aa.net.uk ([2001:8b0:1:ec::8])
by smtp.aa.net.uk with esmtp
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