Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an internet protocol that allows mail servers to send and receive email messages. Within KnowledgeOwl, SMTP is used as a way to send email messages generated within/by KnowledgeOwl to your own mail server for relaying/sending to your readers.
Previously, we supported two "flavors" of SMTP:
- Unauthenticated: The SMTP service doesn't require a username/password combination
- Basic authentication: The SMTP service uses a username/password (or username/app password)
We've been seeing more and more providers shifting to an OAuth2 authentication flow for SMTP, rather than Basic authentication. Providers are making this shift because the authentication flow is more secure--rather than the username and password used by basic authentication, OAuth2 requires a client/secret combination and its own authorization flow.
We're pleased to announce our first OAuth2 SMTP offering with Microsoft. We tested this authorization using the Azure Portal.
If you are currently using a Microsoft basic authentication SMTP for your reader welcome emails and/or subscription notification emails, we encourage you to work with your IT administrator to test setting up an OAuth2 SMTP service to replace it. See Create a new SMTP service: Microsoft OAuth2 for more detailed instructions.
We'll be talking more about this new option in our September 27th Wisdom Wednesday, so if you're interested in using this feature, you may want to join us for the live session (or register so you get a copy of the recording.)
What about other providers?
OAuth2 is much more complicated for us to build, since the authorization flow and setup is specific to each provider, so we'll only be adding support for the providers we get requests for. 😉
If you're using a non-Microsoft SMTP provider who's encouraging you to switch to OAuth2 instead of basic authentication, please contact us to let us know which provider(s) you'd like to see us support in the future!
