SQL MAIL and SQL Agent Mail using POP3 and SMTP - Page 4

After verifying your new mail profile is working, all that is left is to setup SQL Mail and SQL Agent mail in SQL Server. To accomplish this bring up an Enterprise Manager session. Right click on the server name and view the properties of the server. Once the SQL Server properties window is displayed click on the "Server Settings" tab, and the following screen should be displayed.

Under the SQL Mail section of the Server Setting display, click on the "Change..." button. Doing this will bring up the following page.

Use the pull-down box on the above screen to view the mail profiles defined on your SQL Server machine under the account in which SQL Server is running. Select the mail profile you just configured to be used with POP3 and SMTP servers. In my case I selected the SQLMAIL profile I just defined.

Once you have selected your profile, you should consider clicking on the "Test" button. The button will verify that you have configured your mail profile successfully and SQL Server can use this profile to read and send mail. If the test is successful the following screen will be displayed.

Now that you have successfully set up SQL Mail, you still need to set up SQL Agent mail. To set up SQL Agent mail, expand the "Management" folder in Enterprise Manager, right click on "SQL Server Agent, then select "Properties". When the "SQL Server Agent Properties" screen is displayed you can enter your mail profile in the "Mail profile" box, or use the pull-down to select your mail profile from a menu, as I have done on the screen below. If you have not used a domain account or a local machine account to start SQL Agent, and/or SQL Agent is not running you might find your "Mail session" information will be grayed out.

Once you have entered your mail profile use the "Test" button to verify that SQL Agent mail is configured properly. If you receive a "Successfully started (and stopped) a mail session with this profile." message then you have properly configured SQL Agent mail.

Additional Resources

Here are a number of web pages that you can use to find additional information about using POP3 and SMTP servers to support SQL Mail and SQL Agent mail.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;263556

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=/servicedesks/webcasts/wc091301/WCT091

Conclusion:

If you are tired of the problems associated with using Exchange to support your SQL MAIL and SQL Agent mail, or don't have Exchange, then you should consider using a POP3 and SMTP mail to support your SQL Server mail needs. Once your System Administrators have set up a POP3 and SMTP mail server for you to use, then you should be able to use the steps I described above to set up your SQL Server to use POP3 and STMP services to support SQL Mail and SQL Agent Mail.

» See All Articles by Columnist Gregory A. Larsen