Thanks very much for the detailed response Mark, its good to know a little more about how this stuff works.
Sending this from Mutt as a test after having set up smtp via my isp. All the best, Will. On Mon, Apr 02, 2012 at 10:32:10AM -0400, Mark H. Wood wrote: > On Sun, Apr 01, 2012 at 04:23:39PM -0700, [email protected] wrote: > > While trying out mutt over the past couple of days I've noticed that > > messages sent from Mutt are received by gmail but nothing else, as far as > > I can tell. > > > > I can send an email to a gmail account, so messages are getting off my > > computer. If I send an email to a microsoft owa email service, or to the > > mutt users list from mutt, for example, the email never makes it. > > > > I've had a look at mail.log, which doesn't make loads of sense to me, > > being new to mutt, but I can see that something is being `blocked using > > urbl.hostedmail.com'. > > The "rbl" in "urbl" probably refers to a Realtime Blackhole List. > It's a way for email hosts (among others) to check addresses for > properties they don't like such as "known spammer" [sensible] or > "dynamic address from a consumer-grade ISP" [stupid and prejudiced, > IMNSHO]. > > At home I've had to set up exim (the MTA I run) with a special router > to deal with other's mail hubs that don't want to talk to dirty rotten > consumer dynamic IPs: > > # This router routes addresses of paranoid ISPs that assume all dialup users > # are doing something illegitimate. > > paranoids: > driver = manualroute > route_data = ${lookup{$domain}partial-lsearch{/etc/exim/paranoids}} > transport = remote_smtp > > It uses my ISP's mail hub to hide my unclean IP address from finicky > MTAs but lets me send directly to others, so that at least sometimes I > have useful logs to show whether a message went through. > > The simple solution is often to just use your ISP's MTA as a smarthost > for all outgoing mail. I'm picky, so there are times when I don't get > to use simple solutions. > > -- > Mark H. Wood, Lead System Programmer [email protected] > Asking whether markets are efficient is like asking whether people are smart.
