if you mean the ISP blocks inbound port 25 connections to your machine: yell
at your ISP. they're being too nazi with their firewall rules. if they
don't open the port find a new ISP. this is assuming, btw, that you have a
static IP. if you don't, you really have no reason to complain, cuz people
won't be able to send you mail easily anyway.
if you mean the ISP blocks outbound port 25 connections from your machine to
arbitrary internet hosts: as bruno mentioned, some ISPs (such as my company)
block these connections to control spam. it's much easier to figure out who
the spammer is if they have to relay through your server. we simply require
our customers to relay through our mail servers. we don't have any
restrictions on relay from our dialups, though; customers can use any
address they want and send anywhere.
some customers have complained about security or similar - "i don't want to
send my confidential mail through your server." they neglect, of course,
the fact that we own the network in between, so if we really wanted to
sniff, merely avoiding one mail server isn't gonna help. most people smack
their foreheads when they realize that, and so then i tell them about PGP or
something similar. usually it tends to be just one remote server they need
to hit, and so if they REALLY want to, i tell them to open up a high port on
the remote server for smtp.
in any case, your ISP should at least let you relay through their servers
using any address(es) if they block your outbound connects. if they won't
even do that, i'd just find a new ISP.
shag
----- Original Message -----
From: Bruno Wolff III <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Brian R <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: Qmail List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Fri 4 Feb 2000 11.04
Subject: Re: workaround for port 25 block?
On Fri, Feb 04, 2000 at 07:46:17AM -0500,
Brian R <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> My isp blocks port 25, I was looking for suggestions to get around this.
The
> only thing I can come up with is: setting up a relay from an outside box
to
> another port on my machine. Is this plausible?
I am assuming you mean they are blocking connections to port 25 on your
machine, but not other ports.
You will need to find a host that will act as a relay for you. You need to
get an MX record created that points your domain name to their domain
name. If your ISP is also handling your DNS, this may not work.
You need to have the relay server configured to accept mail for your
domain. It needs to be configured to relay this email to your host on
an alternate port.
You might want to double check that it isn't actually connections to port
25 on remote hosts that is being blocked. Some ISPs are doing this to
prevent
spammers from causing them grief. If so, you might be able to get your ISP
to lift the block. If not, you can use an outbound relay similar to the one
above that listens on an alternate port.
