Joey Adams Dot Net

If I have ever spoken to you regarding mail servers, it was probably a frustrating conversation. Me and mail servers just do not get along. I have tried numerous times on all sorts of platforms from unix to linux and windows to get sendmail, postfix, even iis to work correctly.

Well, as a developer, I am needing mail functionality in my php applications. I also would like my joeyadams.net and other domains to be able to have unique email addresses. I already have a windows 2k3 server set up for file/print and previously mail with exchange, which actually worked… well some of the time.

 So here is my plan, on my redhat box, ditch sendmail, use postfix. On win2k3 setup simple iis smtp and pop3 services.

 I get started on all of this and what do you know it works.

2 days later, no more mail. I look in maillog and in the queue on both servers and seeing my connections timing out. With a litle more research I find AT&T’s port 25 blocking policy to cut down on spam.

I tried several tricks, and found an old form that was inaccessible but there was talk all over forums of the ability to ‘opt-out’  of filtering. After about 3 emails, 2 e-chats, and a couple of phone calls, I realize you cannot opt-out anymore.

So the last resort, is setting up the smarthost. I set postfix and iis to use mail.bellsouth.net as my smarthost with no authentication, ( I tested with telnet first). Everything is still timing out and being queued!!!

I call AT&T and noone knows what a smarthost is, or can tell me anything else other than how to configure outlook….. Please, I told you I’m configuring a mail server and you want to know if YOU can help me set up an outlook account.

Well, after fooling with it a couple of days I solved it today. Seems that mail.bellsouth.net resolves very weird when I try it as a smarthost. I pinged the domain name, telnet tested the ip returned, and set the ip in postfix and iis, and voila, it works! Send mail through iis and postfix and php without a hitch!

If you have the same problem with your mail server, queing and connection timing out. First ping your outgoing mail server, then do a telnet test on it, basically

telnet 1.2.3.4 25
ehlo
MAIL FROM:random@email.com
RCPT TO:your@gmail.com
DATA
Subject: Test Relay
This is only a test
.
quit

You may have different results, or need to do things differently, however if your test is ok, then go into your mail server config, and set your smart host to  [1.2.3.4]  , WITH the brackets, the brackets tell it is an ip and not to do a lookup on it.

Then just restart your daemon and it should work.

 Now my 2 cents on the filtering itself:

I think that filtering/throttling/inspecting/blocking ports or packets by any isp for any reason is a strike against net neutrality. We pay for a internet service, to be connected to the internet. I do not pay you hosting. So content is intagible to the ISP. My traffic is private communications, not public domain.

Anti-Spam is a good condition for filtering, however, users should be able to opt-out of this filtering. Trying to opt out I was told many of times I had to get a business account. I’m sorry, but I could pay hosting for less than the price of a business account.  Also the lowest business account price is more than what I am paying now for a higher speed. I have my own rack in my house for a reason, I love having a local development center. Email is one of my requirements.

Being an advocate of Open Source. When you ask me what I clarify as business services, is just that, services, lia and mainly Support. I do not expect bellsouth to know my smarthost settings, or troubleshoot my servers, because I am residential. If I were operating as a business then thats what you pay for, support, and reliability. If you have a business account and your connection is down for a while, then you have legitimate cause for asking restitution in some way, such as reduction on payments for the next month.

The basis of the filtering and my explanation for the net neutrality comment is that, you can pay x ammount of money and have limited internet access (blocking, throttling, filtering communications)  or you can pay xx amount and have full access. Get the picture now?

Also I am against throttling p2p connections. Seriously, not everyone uses them for pirating illegal software. Even scarier, is that AT&T is talking about inspecting packets looking for violations of copyrighted material.

The internet is getting bleek, and policed too hard. Freedom on the web, support Net Neutrality.