SMTP

[Hunkorama417]

Is SMTP down because I can't send e-mail; however, I can check it. My account is fbhm.com and is on NINE.
------------------
Andrew
www.digi-FX.net (http://www.digi-FX.net)
andrew@digi-fx.net

[Deb]

Have you gone over this tutorial yet?
http://www.aota.net/Troubleshooting/port25.php3

Let us know...

Deb
[nbsp]- What other things come in a can?

[Bob]

Hello,

A related article I found today, that basically states that Earthlink, MindSpring and now MSN have all implemented Port 25 Blocking.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-5531362.html?tag=lh

My understanding is that you may still set your From: address as your FutureQuest account email address, however it appears that MSN's blocking may be causing some problems for, Hmmm Outlook, Users ;)

Anyway, thought I'd provide this just for additional information.

Have a Good One
Bob

-[nbsp][nbsp]Funny, MSN causes Outlook users to have problems ??[nbsp][nbsp]:P -

[Terra]

What now is a serious problem, is the fact that MSN is not helping their customers to understand the situation...[nbsp][nbsp]We now have these site owners hitting our EMS wanting an explanation and for us to fix the problem ASAP...

Even when we explain the situation, it does not matter, their mail server is not working and they are paying for it too work...[nbsp][nbsp]I will say though that it usually doesn't escalate to this point until their ISP has blown them off...[nbsp][nbsp]At this point - they are drowning and just looking for someone to throw them a hand...

Port 25 blocking is not the solution to Spam, as they are just like roaches scurrying from one ISP to another...[nbsp][nbsp]The only thing it really does is shift the tech support/complaints from the ISP's to the Web Hosts providing email services...[nbsp][nbsp]The big ISP's can just say 'TOUGH' it's against our policy - we can't help you...[nbsp][nbsp]For every customer they lose to this, I'm sure they'll sign up 6 more newbies in the meantime...

--
Terra
--FutureQuest is not so much what we are - but rather what we are not--
FutureQuest

[Maynard]

It seems that port 25 blocking does go a long way toward stopping the interjection of spam into the system; more of this benefit than the collateral damage attributal thereto.

UUnet was reported by SC at over 17.000 abuses a week for the last several months. Today they're down to 6,000.

Since header analysis clearly shows that uunet dialups were reaching korean open relays directly, port 25 blocking at uunet is the only reason why the spammers left there; they weren't tossed off.

There may be other reasons why they ended up at PSI and gridnet

[sheila]

Well, here's an article at Cnet about the MSN port blocking:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-5531362.html?tag=mn_hd

Boy, I sure hope Verizon (my ISP) doesn't follow suit anytime soon.
:(

[Hunkorama417]

Well now I know why I can't send e-mail from my FutureQuest account. I have a few possible work-arounds and hopefully they'll work.

I simply loath Micro$oft.

[bellgamin]

Whoo baby, I did the telnet business IAW Deb's troubleshooting tutorial & it went perfect. Man am I stoked! I mean... I can't walk & chew gum at the same time, but I actually pulled it off.

Anyway, enough of the nonsense, I have a question. Namely...

MY port 25 tested free & clear, so I can send. But what if my recipient is on MSN -- will my message to him/her be blocked?

Aloha from Ewa Beach,
Bellgamin

[Terra]

Nope, email will flow properly from our servers to theirs...

They are only blocking _their_ customers ability to send mail through any other SMTP servers but theirs...

--
Terra
--I'm sure glad that I'm not on MSN's front line--
FutureQuest

[lowriskjeff]

OK, I am having trouble sending mail from my lowrisk.com domain. I can receive it no problem.

I went through the "port 25" tutorial, ran the telnet test and "could not open a connection". Tried it with both my domain name and my IP, same result.

Called up my ISP, a small local ISP called outerbounds.net and they said they are NOT blocking port 25. The tech I talked to was very sure about it.

Is there anything else that could be causing the problem? I have double checked my email settings, but if they were the issue I should be able to connect via telnet.

Jeff
:confused:

[lowriskjeff]

Oh yeah, one more thing fwiw...

The tech at outerbounds.net had me try to ping my smtp and pop servers. No problem pinging pop.lowrisk.com, but when I tried to ping smtp.lowrisk.com I got "unknown host".

Jeff

[Bob]

Hi Jeff,

That would most likely be because we use mail.lowrisk.com as your outbound mail server.

And in fact running a ping to mail.lowrisk.com resolves properly as well as a connection, via telnet, to lowrisk.com 25.

I also, successfully sent an email through your mail server to my FutureQuest account and it was accepted and transmitted quite nicely.

So at this point it all appears to be fine from the FutureQuest end :)

But based on your running the Port 25 test from this tutorial:
http://www.aota.net/Troubleshooting/port25.php3
and the test apparently failing, I would have to believe that they are blocking Port 25, whether they wish to admit it or not.

Good Luck,
Bob

[Terra]

Use: mail.lowrisk.com

'smtp.' is not a valid subdomain unless you setup a DS:IRO or DS:IRM...
http://www.futurequest.net/Services/IR/

--
Terra
--I have yet to ping thetwilightzone.com--
FutureQuest

[lowriskjeff]

re: smtp.lowrisk.com

My bad.

But I *did* have my email client configured correctly as mail.lowrisk.com. Guess I will have to go back to my ISP and ask again about port 25.

Jeff

[Jason]

Jeff,

One thing to check - when you log into your dialup account, do you have to use a "username@isp.com" (or similar) username, or do you just use "username"?

If it's something along the lines of username@isp.com, then it's very possible (even likely) that your dial-up ISP is using a wholesale POP provider. While this is not necessarily a bad thing (many many many ISPs use wholesalers for some or all of their POPs), it is entirely possible that the wholesaler might be blocking port 25 and your ISP's staff doesn't even know about it.

Jason

[Maynard]

It might be helpful to ensure that the telnet test is implemented properly.
First, forget about smpt. and mail.; just telnet to lowrisk.com
check port 80 (WWW), and port 110 (POP), and port 25 (SMTP)
each of them should show a connect message of some sort.

^C,Enter will get you out of 80; 'quit' will terminate the others

If you get a telnet 'connect' message on port 25, then your ISP is not blocking;
and you can look to your email client configuration.
You can omit the 'mail.' from your domain mail server; and the 'pop.' as well;
at least on lola. I'm sure FQ folks will correct me if I'm wrong.

`~Maynard

ps. the telnet tests must be run from your home/office machine; not from your FQ shell.

[lowriskjeff]

Jason,

It sounds like you might been on to something...I do have to log on as user@isp.com, this was a recent change in the last month or so. You are probably right about the wholesaler, because now all of a sudden there are a lot more dial up locations to chose from.

I will give a call tomorrow and check...

Jeff

[Terra]

You can omit the 'mail.' from your domain mail server; and the 'pop.' as well; at least on lola. I'm sure FQ folks will correct me if I'm wrong.
Ok, I can do that... :)

Right now, you can use your canonical domain name:
acme.com

to connect to all services: 'www.', 'mail.', 'pop.', etc since the Community Server your on is handling these services for your domain...

However, this will be eventually changing as we begin to separate the Mail Systems from the Community Servers, just like what we did with the MySQL engines...

This path will help to facilitate scalability, flexibility, and administration as we consolidate specific tasks (Mail, MySQL, etc) to server systems designed and tuned to better handle these services...

In conclusion: Begin using the 'mail.' for Outbound (SMTP) mail, and 'pop.' for Inbound (POP) message pickup... It will save you a lot of grief later on (and our EMS Support Staff) when the changes are made and your email suddenly stops working...

--
Terra
--It's like a chess game, where every move is critical where sacrifice becomes devastating--
FutureQuest

[Bob: TAG for FAQ]

[sheila]

In conclusion: Begin using the 'mail.' for Outbound (SMTP) mail, and 'pop.' for Inbound (POP) message pickup... It will save you a lot of grief later on (and our EMS Support Staff) when the changes are made and your email suddenly stops working...
The last time this was brought up, those of us on the older servers were told to just continue sticking with yourdomain.com (some of use tried switching to mail.yourdomain.com and pop.yourdomain.com as is listed in the CNC, but it didn't work at that time).

I just tested it out (I'm on NINE), and pop.mydomain.com and mail.mydomain.com now work.

I wonder if there shouldn't be some big announcement, like in the server news forum or something, for the old-timers on the older servers who may not have set their clients up like this. Is it time for all of us to update now?

[Maynard]

as Terra pointed out with typical accuracy ;-}

pop., www., mail., should be working now whether they're required or not. While they may not be now required, they will certainly in the [near?] future be required. So it's not too early to change. I suggested dropping them only for testing purposes via telnet of port 25 access, in order to remove as many possibilities as possible for not achieving an accurate test.

And yes, Sheila, when I subscribed to the "Quest Report", I anticipated just such announcements as you suggested. But then I also expected an announcement of the new forum software.

I'm sure that it's hard to draw the line, and perhaps Deb has one somewhere.

I will take this opportunity to note that the forum feature of being email notified when new topics are added to "Server News" doesn't seem to be working for me; or I mis-understand the feature.

-Maynard