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Xserve@home · Oct 19, 2005, 09:32 PM

I'd like to run my own mail server off my OS X box at home (Panther Server.) Unfortunately my ISP blocks port 25 in order to reduce spam.

Is there any way to get around port 25 being blocked? I am not a spammer (I think they should be shot or hanged, every single one of them.) Is circumventing this blocking illegal or again my ISPs TOS?

rwhiffen · Oct 19, 2005, 10:55 PM

Unfortunately, there's no easy way to do that. You can easily change the port. Unfortunately, everyone sending mail to you won't know where you've moved to. And outbound will still have to go over port 25 to most destinations and they'll silently drop those packets. So in short, no, you probably won't get very far with out setting up a relay outside their port blocking.

It also probably does violate your TOS. They probably want you to pay for a 'business' account to run your own services, which sucks, but it's their network.

Rich

Xserve@home · Oct 19, 2005, 11:36 PM

Thanks for the response.
Back when I was on ISDN I ran an email server off my Debian box. Guess that's because it was ISDN- who'd run a spamming business off of that?

This article talks about about secure SMTP at the end, how difficult would that be? http://searchexchange.techtarget.com...062566,00.html

rwhiffen · Oct 20, 2005, 09:21 AM

Well that's kind of what I was talking about. You can move off of port 25, but you have to have a relay or some other gateway upstream that does the port 25 to port relay for you. The rest of the world only talks to 25. That's the toughy. For example, my web hosting powweb.com runs on 587. So mail to me first goes to powweb.com on port 25, which then converts to 587. To regulate spam, they require me to authenticate traffic.

Here's a question: Do you have your own domain name or are you using the ISP domain name? If your using the ISP domain name user@ispname.com, you can simply configure their SMTP server as your smart relay and you're all done.

As for ISDN, you'd be suprised how much spam originates from dial up lines. They open an account (usually with the first month free!!) spam as much as they can until they get caught, then change their name and try again with a new account.

Rich

Xserve@home · Oct 20, 2005, 08:48 PM

I'm using just the static (more or less) IP from my ADSL line. I'm using No-IP to reverse DNS(?) whatever.whatever.net to my IP at home. With ISDN it worked great; just a few changes to the sendmail.conf file and I was good to go.

I was thinking of getting my own domain, then hosting it off my own machine. I'm wondering if then they'd open 25 for me, or if I'd have to get a business account. I was hesitant because then I'd have to phone Yahoo! BB and explain the whole thing in Japanese.

I can try putting my ISPs outgoing mail server in, we'll see if that works...

Gavin · Oct 21, 2005, 11:53 PM

Anyone with a server on the Internet can relay email for you. Maybe you can set up a trade with someone. Could be worth a post on the postfix or sendmail mailing list- you'll probly get flamed as off topic but it's worth a shot.

There are commercial SMTP relay services who will relay for a fee.
such as:
http://www.dyndns.com/services/mailhop/outbound.html <- this one starts at $15 a year
http://www.gosmtp.com

google for "smtp relay server service"

Xserve@home · Oct 23, 2005, 06:00 PM

Gavin thanks for the links, I'll check 'em out

OreoCookie · Oct 31, 2005, 03:01 AM

Originally Posted by Xserve@home

I'm using just the static (more or less) IP from my ADSL line. I'm using No-IP to reverse DNS(?) whatever.whatever.net to my IP at home. With ISDN it worked great; just a few changes to the sendmail.conf file and I was good to go.

I was thinking of getting my own domain, then hosting it off my own machine. I'm wondering if then they'd open 25 for me, or if I'd have to get a business account. I was hesitant because then I'd have to phone Yahoo! BB and explain the whole thing in Japanese.

I can try putting my ISPs outgoing mail server in, we'll see if that works...

My internet connection in Japan was pretty restrictive in this regard, too. It seemed like we all shared one big connection behind a router, there was no way, we could use dyndns or so. 22 MBit and no way to utilize them!

Usually using their mailserver works (it worked for me at least, I had `I am' net).

legacyb4 · Oct 31, 2005, 08:16 AM

Yahoo BB is now blocking outgoing traffic on port 25? Man, how times are changing... guess with the 100mbit optical lines (they do optical now, I assume), they've probably had to cover their butts...

Originally Posted by Xserve@home

I was hesitant because then I'd have to phone Yahoo! BB and explain the whole thing in Japanese.

Macpilot · Nov 2, 2005, 10:54 PM

Have you tried contacting your ISP and asking them to stop blocking that port?

How about using port 587? They don't block that port, generally.

I emailed my ISP so I could use my .Mac email on my SBC internet connection to send mail, and they told me I could either use port 587, or just use the SBC smtp server as my outgoing server.

Xserve@home · Nov 6, 2005, 05:44 PM

I doubt Yahoo BB would unblock port 25. They have like 50 zillion customers in Japan now, and somehow I doubt they'd do that just for me.

Using port 587 though ... hmmm .....

Xserve@home · Jan 26, 2006, 06:08 AM

Sorry to rehash an old thread.

I now have a domain with mail servers and all that. Am I correct in thinking that I can just use those now?