SMTP

[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