Sending mail through http proxy

Question

I'm trying to send emails from a system that connects to internet through a http proxy which is set in Internet Options.

i'm using SmtpClient.

Is there any way to send mails with SmtpClient through this proxy setting. Thanks

Answer 1

Http Proxies control http traffic, they rarely have anything to do with SMTP at all. I've never heard of proxying SMTP before after all SMTP itself is intrinsically supports a chain of "proxies" to the destination SMTP server.

Answer 2

I understand that you want to use the browsers default settings, i would also like an answer for that.

Meanwhile, you could do it manually.

    MailAddress from = new MailAddress("[email protected]");
    MailAddress to = new MailAddress("[email protected]");

    MailMessage mm = new MailMessage(from, to);
    mm.Subject = "Subject"
    mm.Body = "Body";

    SmtpClient client = new SmtpClient("proxy.mailserver.com", 8080);
    client.Credentials = new System.Net.NetworkCredential("[email protected]", "password");

    client.Send(mm);

Answer 3

If the only access you have to the internet is through HTTP, then pretty much the only way you'll be able to do this is by setting up a VPS (or equiv) with SSH on port 443 and using corkscrew (or putty) to tunnel ssh through. From there it is a simple matter to forward smtp traffic over your ssh tunnel.

Be aware that you may be violating the companies computing policy if you do this.