Is possible sending emails without knowing the password?

Question

My customer purchased hosting and email accounts (info@mycompany.com) at hostgator. The new project that I have to upload to his hostgator is sending emails from info@mycompany.com.

The question: can send those emails without knowing the password since he doesn't want to tell me the password?

He argues that there is currently a hosted project which is sending emails without knowing the password. I could not believe that, so I have checked the current project's config file and found this:

public $display_offline_message = '1';
public $offline_image = '';
public $sitename = ' My Company';
public $editor = 'tinymce';
public $captcha = 'recaptcha';
public $list_limit = '20';
public $access = '1';
public $debug = '0';
public $debug_lang = '0';
public $dbtype = 'mysql';
public $host = 'localhost';
public $user = '*******';
public $password = '*******';
public $db = '*******';
public $dbprefix = '*****_';
public $live_site = '';
public $secret = 'fasdfadfsf';
public $gzip = '0';
public $error_reporting = 'default';
public $helpurl = 'http://help.joomla.org/proxy/index.php?option=com_help&keyref=Help{major}{minor}:{keyref}';
public $ftp_host = '127.0.0.1';
public $ftp_port = '21';
public $ftp_user = 'admin';
public $ftp_pass = '*****';
public $ftp_root = '';
public $ftp_enable = '0';
public $offset = 'Europe/Madrid';
public $mailer = 'mail';
public $mailfrom = 'contacto@mycompany.com';
public $fromname = 'My Company';
public $sendmail = '/usr/sbin/sendmail';
public $smtpauth = '0';
public $smtpuser = '';
public $smtppass = '';  <<<<< I expected the password here
public $smtphost = 'localhost';
public $smtpsecure = 'none';
public $smtpport = '25';
public $caching = '0';
public $cache_handler = 'file';
public $cachetime = '15';
public $MetaDesc = '';

So is it true the current project doesn't know the password? Or if the password maybe written in another file?

Answer 1

You're not specifying how you intend to send these emails, but by default, Joomla uses PHP to send emails, and does not require any additional password. I don't know about the technical details with this, but using a Joomla component (like AcyMailing or JNews) does not require any password other than the regular admin login.

You can set the email options under Global configuration -> Server tab from your Joomla admin area.

The lines from your configuration.php that you mention are used only if you set "SMTP" as mailer. Otherwise, they are ignored.

public $smtpauth = '0';
public $smtpuser = '';
public $smtppass = '';  <<<<< I expected the password here
public $smtphost = 'localhost';
public $smtpsecure = 'none';
public $smtpport = '25';

Hence, you don't need the password for info@mycompany.com in order to send emails from that account using Joomla.