Portablr SMPT server

It's generally not work bringing an SMTP server with you. Most IPs you wind up on are dynamic IPs, which are blocked from sending mail from nearly all major ISPs (they block port 25, so no mail can get out). In addition, most major ISPs either block or filter to junk email sent from dynamic IP blocks due to spam (most mail originating in these blocks is spam sent from compromised PCs).

Your best bet is to get a good email provider that makes SMTP available to you from anywhere using SSL and SMTP-Auth. There are many providers like that around.

Welcome to PortableApps.com

It's generally preferable to use authenticated SMTP on the mail host where your POP or IMAP mail comes in.

Individual SMTP servers are:

• hard to configure correctly
• easily abused for sending spam
• likely to be blocked because of the above two reasons

Admittedly, some providers don't let you do what you want (e.g. have several alternative email addresses) but you can usually shop around until you find something. Having a "real" SMTP server that you use, managed by a professional and with a fixed IP address, is likely to prove much more reliable than a portable smtp server.

Thunderbird lets you configure different SMTP servers for each account or identity, to make it even easier for you.

That's not to say someone won't portablize an SMTP server. (An easy one would put some sort of Linux inside QEMU.)

Edit: Is there some way to know that John's asleep, so I won't bother answering questions when he's likely to answer himself? He seems to type faster than I do.