HOW TO: Sending Email from a Laptop
I own two laptops and one desktop computer, all of which run Linux. Most modern Linux distributions come with postfix and/or sendmail
that allows them to send email. Unfortunately, in an attempt to reduce spam, many sysadmins have configured their mail servers not to accept email sent this way. On a desktop machine you can simply configure your mail client software to use your institute’s or your Internet service provider’s mail relay.
Life is not so easy with a laptop. You have to change the settings in your email client every time you change locations. If you carry your laptop to and from work this could mean changing your settings twice a day.
This web page describes some solutions to this problem using ssh tunnels. In order to implement these solutions you need to be able to access your institute’s (company or university) system via ssh and you need to have ssh client software installed on your laptop. The solutions I describe use openssh on Linux, but should be easily modified to use any version of ssh on any operating system, including Microsoft’s operating systems using the very good putty ssh software.
HOWTO: Sending Email from a Laptop