Eric Dunbar wrote:
On 17/08/06, pstreibig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Eric Dunbar wrote:
> On 16/08/06, Eric Dunbar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Hello all, I'm trying to make my server a little more user-friendly
>> for my
>> friends and for that to happen I need to add the ability for the
>> server to
>> SEND mail.
>>
>> My ISP (Bell Sympatico) blocks all attempts to deliver mail
directly to
>> another mail server. The only way for me to get mail out is by
>> connecting to
>> my ISP's mail SMTP mail server using a username and password, over
SSL.
>>
>> Does anyone have any idea how to set sendmail (or another MTA) up on
>> YDL to
>> send mail from the server (a Gallery installation, to be specific)
to a
>> public internet address?
>>
>
> Well, I managed to answer my own question by stumbling on the right
> web page at sendmail's site:
> <http://www.sendmail.org/~ca/email/auth.html> under the section 'Using
> sendmail as a client with AUTH'.
>
> On a hunch I changed an extra setting alongside the preferences
> settings. Using the Webmin sendmail interface I made the following
> additional change:
>
> Change #1 (not listed at page cited above):
> "Send outgoing mail via host" is now set to my ISP's mail server (in
> my case: smtphm.sympatico.ca
DANGER!
Be extra careful here with your sendmail settings once you implement
this. Unless you are locking down access to your sendmail (for your
friends) you could be creating an open relay. This could be considered
a breach of contact by your ISP, and cause other nastiness such as bots
relaying spam through your authenticated to ISP connection.
It's not actually meant to relay mail for any users. Its only reason
for existing is to allow the gallery 1 and gallery 2
(http://gallery.menalto.com/) installations on the server to send
outbound e-mail. I'm fairly sure that external e-mail relaying is
disabled since a "telnet serverIPaddress 25" says connection refused
and the sendmail 'SMTP port options' are set to
'Port=smtp,Addr=127.0.0.1, Name=MTA' (From Webmin help: This option
allows you to configure what IP address and port the sendmail server
listens on.).
Besides, the router does not relay any inbound 'port 25' requests to
the server so someone outside the local network would be unable to get
to the server via that port anyway.
Ok, that's good. I was not familiar with what you meant by Gallery user
before reading the posted link. Operating without many specifics I
merely wanted to point out that this can cause problems. I was wary
about providing mail services to users without authentication. As Chris
mentioned, Postfix is pretty well secured by default, however users with
accounts on the server and computers on your LAN would be able to send
mail. This could include wireless users and and infected machines on
your LAN.
Having inherited control of an old linuxPPC mailserver that was listed
as an open relay a number of years back I recalled my frustrations.
That was also the first time i'd ever touched linux...
That being said, I believe sendmail reads it's configs the same way
postfix does (which i am familiar with using). If this is the case,
then having a duplicate entry should not matter. Grouping your changes
at the end of the config will make your life easier than having to
search throughout the entire config file. Just for your own sanity you
should note why you made the changes.
Notes made :-)
I'm curious though, when you say your ISP blocks all outbound mail. How
are they implementing this? I guess it's more academic curiosity, but
did you try changing the default port for sendmail? There are more
reasons for not doing this than for doing it though, not the least of
which being the pain of maintaining an up to date, fully patched secure
mail server, which ideally your ISP is doing for you already.
See Chris Murtagh's email for an succinct answer to your question.
Yes, that did confirm my suspicions. Your current solution seems the
most elegant.
As for the sendmail v. postfix debate, well, you have sendmail running
now. In my experience most people have problems simply getting sendmail
configured correctly and running the way they would like it to. I can
currently see no reason to change. If you have the time and
inclination, Postfix is definitely the better choice, esp. for expanded
services. I can't verify on my ydl machine, due to a home disaster, but
in my experience, sendmail is installed by default on *nix machines.
Correct me if I'm wrong here :) Many root and user notifications are
sent by the system and applications via the basic sendmail system.
Postfix and other MTAs are frequently included as the preferred MTA of a
distro, but generally users need to switch from sendmail to Postfix via
the method Chris described.
cheers
:ps
Sorry in advance if this message hits the list in two similar forms, but
my first attempt appears to have evaporated after a successful status=sent..
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