[romeosc]

I know some may think this is in wrong forum, but it only applies to those who use a PB, MB or MBP.

When traveling, I can't send mail from most hotels without using my Gmail account. However when using Apple Mail and changing preferences to SSL Port 995, I can now send but not receive mail. (To receive, I have to change prefernces to port 110, and constantly reverse the preferences)

Is there any easier way?

[besson3c]

Just FYI, this is not a laptop issue.

Port 995 is the secure pop3 port for receiving email, sending email should take place on either port 25 or 587. If you can't send mail, chances are one of these ports is blocked. If you can't receive mail, your incoming port is being blocked.

Unfortunately, there isn't a simple way to get around ports being blocked.

[mfbernstein]

It's not just hotels. Certain cable providers block port 25, so if you're not using their SMTP server, you're hosed.

That said, at least with Thunderbird, incoming and outgoing servers are configured completely independently, so there's no way changing the POP port would influence the SMTP settings.

If you have shell access to the mail server, SSH tunneling can be used to get around this problem, though it requires some configuration.

[ghporter]

As is pointed out by others, this is not related to only Mac laptops. And it's not just cable providers who block port 25; my DSL provider, AT&T, does the same thing. A lot of mail providers have alternate ports available to contact their servers, so check with the ones you have problems with. You should be able to configure your client to use a specific port for each server, but the way you do it depends on which client you use.

Now, my quandary: is this a "mail app" question, or a "network configuration" question? I'm going to leave it here for now and see what shakes out.

[romeosc]

The reason I put it in portables is because it is a normal problem for travelers. Hotels usually block outgoing email to stop spammers. They also block the port normally used by my slingbox to watch my DirecTv Tivo on the road but I was able to change my router when I was home.

But the workaround for sending email is a pain. i do give up sometimes and just use Gmail account.

[Simon]

I run my own mail server and that makes getting around blocked ports very simple.

Just open a shell and run this line:
sudo ssh -NT my.user.name@my.mail.server -L25:my.mail.server:25 -L110:my.mail.server:110

In Mail.app use normal smtp and pop3 - the traffic will be going through an encrypted tunnel anyway. Set the hosts to 'localhost'. As long as that shell is open Mail.app will tunnel all the traffic through ssh. When you're done you hit ctrl-c in the shell and the tunnel is closed.

Of course the same technique also works if you don't have a personal mail server to which you can log in. Instead you use a third machine (to which you can log in) and set up a local forward of the necessary ports. You enter something like this in ~/.ssh/config

Host just.a.name
User my.user.name
Hostname my.third.box
LocalForward 9110 pop.mail.server:110
LocalForward 9025 smtp.mail.server:25

Then open a new shell and open the ssh connection to the third machine:
ssh just.a.name

Set mail to use localhost and port 9110 for pop3 as well as localhost and port 9025 for smtp. As long as that ssh session is open your third box will route your pop3 and smtp traffic to the mail server. Needless to say the third box of course has to have access to ports 25 and 110. If it's also on a network where those ports are blocked of course it won't work.