Stefaan A Eeckels writes:
> Hi list,
>
> I've got a colleague who claims that many ISPs (he lives in
> Canada, so probably Canadian ISPs) refuse mail based on the
> MAIL FROM: command. To me, that seems inane and futile, but
> as I'm not an ISP, and don't work for one either, I'm
> solliciting the views of people in the know.
Only true to a limited extent. Most ISPs reject MAIL FROM:s that are
clearly bogus, but that's about it.
> The qmail connection being that I'm running qmail on our
> corporate server, and he wants me to basically make it an
> open relay so he can use the SMTP server from his portable
> (he's on the road a lot, uses a lot of different ISP while
> on the road, wants his mail to look as if it comes from
> the corporate server, and can't/won't give me a range of
> IP addresses). Refusing mail that doesn't come from
> our domain is of course dimwitted, as we would not be receiving
> a lot of mail :-).
> He pretends this can be done with Exchange or Notes - I guess
> it's BS, but I don't know these animals...
It's BS.
> In any case, he's
> a director of the joint, and threatens to migrate to Exchange
> (he's a big Exchange fan) if this can't be done.
>
> My solution would be to patch qmail-smtpd to *require* a
> auth before accepting any further commands, and to run it
> on another port. Does this sound OK?
Sounds about right.
I would also recommend that you start looking for another job, where people
who obviously know zilch about technical issues are kept as far away from
equipment as possible.
Probably the best response to your PHB's drivel would probably to mention,
casually, that although MSexchange has vaguely similar sounding features,
it's for use on internal LANs only, and nobody uses them on the Internet
because it makes it possible for hackers to break into the computer and
destroy all documents.
That should fix him.
--
Sam
