Topic: Email problems... DNS linked??

[Ritchie Logan]

Hi,

I recently donated to dyndns, and delegated my domain to their servers. This all seems to have propagated now, and I can hit the web server (www.xxxxx.com) on my e-smith box (4.1.2) from anywhere (although still can't ping it.... strange... nevermind).

I was collecting my email using Multidrop from my ISP pop3 account. I would still prefer to do this, but I think I am unable to as I have delegated my DNS. Still... no problem I've set e-smith to run as a Standard email server (only problem then is if e-smith is down for any reason, I'll lose email).

Now.... email OUT is fine. In fact it's very good - very very quick.
Email IN is 100% non-functional! Email within the domain is fine, however I get error messages when I try to send in email from outside my domain.

I have played about with the DNS settings for MX records, and the varying error messages look like I may have now got the DNS working OK. I have a sneaky feeling that either e-smith is not happy to receive, or there are ports getting blocked somewhere.

Here are the error messages I've had:
Name Server: host not found errors.

I then added a CName and a MX recordto my DNS settings:
Host           Data
mail.xxxxx.com xxxxx.com.

Host           TTL    Type   Data
xxxxx.com      43200  MX     5 xxxxx.com. (with a dot)

However.. still no email!!!
The error message on my returned mails now state: Connection timed out with
mail.xxxxx.com.

So it looks to me that mail is getting through the DNS, but not onto e-smith. I also checked /var/log/maillog for any signs of activity, and there is nothing... just the mails I've been sending out.

Can anyone offer any advice......?

Many thanks

Ritchie

[Geoff Bennion]

Is the ISP blocking the port ? - 25

Have you got an entry for the ipaddress ?
foobar.com MX mail.foobar.com.
mail.foobar.com IN A ip.address.to.server

[Ritchie Logan]

Problem has been solved.... I'm pretty sure there's a bug in e-smith 4.1.2 & SME5 - I have reported it butI haven't had any response yet.

I too was suspicious of the ISP blocking port 25, so this led me to investigate. Turns out they (Telewest/Blueyonder in the UK) don't block any. So that wasn't the problem.

I was able to telnet onto port 25 from inside my network, but not from the internet. This meant that other SMTP servers trying to connect to e-smith couldn't.

I noticed that although I had changed my email settings from MULTIDROP to STANDARD, that my pop3 settings were still there. I upgraded from 4.1.2 to SME5 changed back to multidrop, then back to standard again.... and still the pop3 settings persisted, and no ability to hit port 25 from the internet.

I finally gave it a kick, and did a fresh install of SME5, and Bob's yer uncle.... up came port 25 live and kicking, and all of a sudden I could receive email.

So there's the problem.... e-smith 4.1.2 and SME5 don't like it when you move from multidrop to standard email.

Thanks for your response.

Ritchie