[9fans] (no subject)

[9fans] (no subject)

[devon.odell]

So! I finally got mail working. I'm sending this from a terminal window.
The trick was indeed that my ISP was blocking port 25. I had them turn
it on, but alas that allows people to connect internally to me -- but not
for me to connect to external mail servers. Which I think is just very
lame. They require you to set up your mailserver to relay through them.

Oh well. In either case, I was able to connect to smtp.gmail.com on
port 587. Their relay server is _not_ their MX server. While chatter on
this list has implied that's an expectation, it's not a requirement. So
they're allowed to do that.

However, this raised a question for me. It seems that the smtp= line in
/lib/ndb/local doesn't accept a dial string as valid input. Hence, I had to
manually hack remotemail to use net!smtp.gmail.com!587, since we will
only connect to port 25 by default. Should I fix this, or is this something
we're supposed to have to do?

--dho

Re: [9fans] outbound smtp

[geoff]

It's a small change to remotemail or rewrite, and that seems to be
adequate.

Re: [9fans] (no subject)

[W B Hacker]

devon.odell@gmail.com wrote:
> So! I finally got mail working. I'm sending this from a terminal window.
> The trick was indeed that my ISP was blocking port 25. I had them turn
> it on, but alas that allows people to connect internally to me -- but not
> for me to connect to external mail servers. Which I think is just very
> lame. They require you to set up your mailserver to relay through them.
> 
> Oh well. In either case, I was able to connect to smtp.gmail.com on
> port 587. Their relay server is _not_ their MX server. While chatter on
> this list has implied that's an expectation, it's not a requirement. So
> they're allowed to do that.
> 
> However, this raised a question for me. It seems that the smtp= line in
> /lib/ndb/local doesn't accept a dial string as valid input. Hence, I had to
> manually hack remotemail to use net!smtp.gmail.com!587, since we will
> only connect to port 25 by default. Should I fix this, or is this something
> we're supposed to have to do?
> 
> --dho
> 

- Port 587 (with TLS & authentication) will increasingly be needed for smtp when 
a Plan9 device is serving as a workstation or otherwise relaying by remote MX.

'Connectivity provider' ISP's are finding it essential to intercept traffic FROM 
their broadband client pool directed TO any port 25 to reduce 'bot-infested 
WinBox traffic (billions of such). Many ISP are required by local regulations to 
do this sort of thing.

- Port 25 inbound (optionally with STARTTLS) remains needed for operating a 
'public facing' MTA, with, of course, randomly selected ports (well) above 1024 
for outbound to other MTA's port 25.

'public Facing mail servers will increasingly need to be in a Data Centre or 
otherwise on unblocked fixed IP with apprpriate ToS, with a PTR record, and not 
in the midst of a dynamic IP block.

So goeth the spam wars....

:-(

Bill Hacker