After looking at the message about e-mail, I've run into a problem with my message board. I forgot the password for the admin account. Unfortunately, because sending mail doesn't work, I am unable to reset the mail password. I tried accessing the database directly to find my password but the passwords all appear to be encrypted.
How I retrieve my password so I can get access to my board?
It depends upon the message board. Many of them have mechanisms to reset the admin account password. Sometimes you have to put some sort of "reset_password" file somewhere then visit the board, others have an option in the config file to do it. Alternately, if you know what sort of encryption it's using, you can directly change the password in the database. Look at the FAQ/help pages for whatever board you're using.
I managed to reset my admin password.
So, if I use SMTP mail, will the board be able to send out mail? It would just use it for that, so hopefully, there shouldn't be any abuse.
Yeah, you have to configure the board to use authenticated SMTP to send mail, which means giving it your username/password. Be careful if you're putting that in a config file that the file is only readable by you (chmod 600 filename.php) so no one can steal your password.