Re: smtp authentication (sendmail relay)

[Lloyd Zusman <ljz@asfast.com>]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> Lloyd Zusman <ljz@asfast.com> writes:
> 
> > [...]
>
> I can't seem to get connected to smtp server.  My transcript tells a
> different story:
>  (but at least I was able to connect to pop server)
> [ ... ]
> 
> I notice a lengthy pause between typing the telnet command to connect
> to smtp server and the error message being returned.
> 
> Possibly something to do with my ISP DNS machine?.  But seemsno way to
> connect to smtp server.

Yes, I really think it has to do with the fact that your ISP is not
supplying reverse DNS for your connection.  Determine your IP address
using `ifconfig' or some other means, and then type:

  nslookup www.xxx.yyy.zzz

where "www.xxx.yyy.zzz" is your IP address.

If you get a response which contains something like this ...

   can't find www.xxx.yyy.zzz: Non-existent host/domain

... then it would be almost certain that your ISP is not providing
reverse DNS for your connection.  They really *should* supply this,
because as I mentioned earlier, more and more services on the internet
are requiring proper reverse DNS in order for you to connect to them,
and I'm pretty sure that a large service like newsguy would indeed be
set up in this fashion.

It's possible that this can be fixed very quickly by contacting your
ISP and requesting that they set up reverse DNS for you.  The DNS
configuration is complicated, and quite often small errors creep in
which disable things like reverse DNS.  I have found from my own
experience that ISP's often screw up reverse DNS, and that the tech
support people at an ISP frequently only have to make a quick fix to
some config file in order to get your reverse DNS working.

If this is the case, your problems will be a lot closer to being
solved after only making one short phone call to your ISP.

And in any case, you really *should* have proper reverse DNS these
days if you want to access services on the internet, irrespective
of these specific SMTP problems.


> Seem there would be tools to manage this... I seem to recall something
> about fetchmail .... but not recognizing it in man page.

Fetchmail might indeed handle this.  But again ... without proper
reverse DNS, it doesn't matter whether you access your SMTP via telnet
or fetchmail or sendmail or whatever.


-- 
 Lloyd Zusman
 ljz@asfast.com