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In theory a domain is just a glorified IP address, so if I take my public IP, Ex. 12.34.56.78 then is there a way for me to send emails from the alias of noreply@12.34.56.78? If so do I need to setup a custom email server? I don't need to receive emails just send them. Also if it won't work, how come?

TY

  • you need an SMTP server to send emails, either an existing one, or your own. Check out https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24270715/send-anonymous-mail-from-local-machine And for the from address, you can probably use `noreply@localhost` – user_na Nov 02 '22 at 17:36
  • Would this work if I wanted to send an email to other people not on my network? For example a gmail account, could I send an email to it using noreply@localhost? –  Nov 02 '22 at 17:44
  • gmail only allows sending from addresses you control (https://support.google.com/mail/answer/22370?hl=en) which is not the case for the not working one above. You would need to set up your own smtp server (linked post above) or having a SMTP service which accepts any from address – user_na Nov 02 '22 at 17:57

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Yes, you can.

There is nothing preventing you from sending an email to (test@test.com) or (test@10.10.10.10) in theory. As long as the mail server accepts hostnames and IP addresses.

However, in reality, this just isn't the case.

For one, spam prevention has greatly increased in the past few years making most spam prevention software prevent these kinds of emails.

Secondly, some SMTP servers will not recognize or accept emails from these kinds of addresses.

In the end, these kinds of addresses are only really used in spam mail.

Anger
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    But one should not do that. In best case you might send replays to someone else, in worst case you can expose the recipients of your email to someone else. – user_na Nov 02 '22 at 17:54
  • I agree. It is best security practice to avoid using those types of email addresses. – Anger Nov 02 '22 at 17:59