sendmail sends, but only local and bellsouth work

srlinuxx · l33t Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 627

Welp, the subject/topic line states the problem. I've set up sendmail (or attempted to) and it only works partically. As stated it only sends locally and the only isp/domain that'll accept my mail is bellsouth.net. The rest time out. So, I'm not sure where to start trouble shooting this. The headers coming in from bellsouth look good and all seem masq'd fine.

I been reading howtos, the fine manuals and the forums here for going on my third day (and night!). I've checked and checked the config files and my dns record. My subdomain mail1 resolves back to my ip addy and I think reverse lookup is working.

I also can't seem to get sendmail to accept connections from outside the lan. I have a rule for port 25 to be open and accept connections, and netstat shows stmp is listening, but the port still shows closed.

I'm not using ssmtp. I've tried sendmail using procmail and itself with the -Ac switch. The same result - only bellsouth and locally.

I don't suppose anyone has any thoughts on the subject? Just let me know what other info I can provide.

tia,
-s
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DaveArb · Guru Joined: 29 Apr 2004 Posts: 510 Location: Texas, USA

Assumptions: Your ISP is BellSouth, and you are on a dynamically assigned IP.

Guess: BellSouth is one of the growing number of ISPs that block port 25 traffic on their network?

Dave

davidblewett · Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 3:16 pm Post subject:

Following his assumption and guess:

Solution: Use Bell South's SMTP server as a relay from yours. This will also avoid some domains potentially marking your email as spam because it's from a dynamic IP pool.
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srlinuxx · l33t Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 627

Yeah, bellsouth's the isp. I have a static ip tho.

So, I guess that's why they accept my mail I send to me@bellsouth.net, but won't pass others@theirs.com on to other domains? Dang that pisses me off.

I guess that's why qpopper or teapop ain't working either? I can pop what's sent locally, but nothing sent from other domains make it to me - even bellsouth's.

But yeah, I bet you're right about that cuz when I nmap'd bellsouth's ports 25 and 110 last night, it said it was filtered. But filtered ain't the same as blocked I was hoping. I guess it is for /me/!

Dang it all. They and charter are the only broadband games in town too.

Thanks. Least I know I could have made it work.
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DaveArb · Guru Joined: 29 Apr 2004 Posts: 510 Location: Texas, USA

I guessed right, here's the official word: http://home.bellsouth.net/csbellsouth/s/editorial.dll?fromspage=all/home.htm&categoryid=&bfromind=62&eeid=3784168&eetype=article&render=y&ck=

I'm confused by your POP3 comments, though. Port 110 blocking would be very rare, and not make much sense. Qpopper is a POP3 server that, to the best of my knowledge, will only serve mail that resides on the local host, so I don't know what blocking port 110 would affect anyway in this regard.

Dave

srlinuxx · l33t Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 627

davidblewett · Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 6:37 pm Post subject:

Just use their smtp server as a relay from yours. It's what I do. I can send mail from my boxes at home, and my smtp server connects to theirs to actually get it to the recipient. I don't have my smtp server listening on the external IP address, so you have to make a SSH connection and do port forwarding to use mine from outside my network.
_________________
No guilt in life, no fear in death
this is the power of Christ in me
From lifes first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
-- Newsboys, "In Christ Alone", "Adoration: The Worship Album"

srlinuxx · l33t Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 627

srlinuxx · l33t Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 627

DaveArb · Guru Joined: 29 Apr 2004 Posts: 510 Location: Texas, USA

srlinuxx · l33t Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 627

stickboy2642 · Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 3:06 am Post subject:

With regards to forwarding all of your mail from sendmail to your ISP's smtp server, this is almost necessary on any network unless you have your own DNS server set up and your mail server registered in DNS. A lot of servers will try to do a reverse lookup to see if they can resolve the name and domain that you claim you are sending from, and if they can't, they will reject the email. Forwarding all of your mail through Bell South's smtp servers should eliminate this problem, since when the servers do the lookup, it will see their DNS name and will likely accept the messages.
I run postfix and have all my mail forwarding to my ISP, and it works like a champ. I just added

relayhost = 11.22.33.44

in my main.cf file and all mail is sent directly to my ISP and then forwarded on.
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srlinuxx · l33t Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 627

stickboy2642 · Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 3:48 pm Post subject:

The thing with POP3 is that the mail still has to make it via port 25 to your Sendmail server, and from there, sendmail delivers it to the appropriate mailbox on your machine. POP3 is used to "fetch" the mail from those mailboxes on your server, so the root of the problem is likely still the Bell South problem of blocking port 25...

Do you have any information in your log about incoming mail that you sent? Is there any information showing a connection attempt from other mailservers? If not, then it is probably because the port is being blocked and mail cannot get through to your sendmail server. If there are log entries, take a look at them to see if they give any clues to the problem.
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srlinuxx · l33t Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 627

stickboy2642 · Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 8:08 pm Post subject:

My guess is that it is the Bell South problem. They still get mail through due to the fact that their mail server is the only one that is set to accept mail. They don't block port 25 altogether, they only allow connections to their own mail server on that port. Any others are blocked. This would make sense with the fact that you don't have any error messages in your log files at all. Seems to me that if it was either an iptables problem or a mail configuration problem, you would see errors in your log files. However, if mail is never able to get to the server, then there is nothing to log...
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srlinuxx · l33t Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 627

stickboy2642 · Posted: Fri Jul 02, 2004 1:24 pm Post subject:

If you have access to a mail server somewhere that is not on the Bell South network, one that you have physical or remote access to, you could try sending a message through that and see if it generates any error messages. If it does, then you will know for sure that is the problem.

You could also maybe try talking to Bell South and see if there is any way to get around the problem. Maybe they offer some kind of package that would allow for personal mail servers or something. Just a suggestion, may be worth a shot.
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