Topic: Weird Remote SMTP problem

[rmccue]

I'm having a strange problem.  I setup my SME server about 3 weeks ago, and everything has been working fine until this morning.  For some reason since this morning, I cannot sent e-mail via any external SMTP servers that I normally use (e.g. my ISP's smtp server, and my SMTP server on my other linux box).  

If I ssh into my SME box I can "telnet mail.msys.ca 25" and get a response from the server.  If I try to telnet from my Windows box behind the SME server I get a "Could not open connection to the host on port 25".  Yes I can surf the net just fine, and access my IMAP mail on servers outside my SME gateway from my windows machine.

Any ideas?  I am stumped, and my wife is getting grumpy because she has to use webmail to send any of her e-mail out now.

Thanks for your help in advnace

Rich
Victoria, BC

[Anonymous]

If I ssh into my SME box I can "telnet mail.msys.ca 25" and get a response from the server.  If I try to telnet from my Windows box behind the SME server I get a "Could not open connection to the host on port 25".

If you try to do a connection from inside the network  to outside, so this should work in any way no matter what port you are using.

I assume your sme box is set up as a server & gateway, and you didn´t set up any new software at your windows box. Then have a look at the logfiles i.e. do a tail -f /var/log/smtpfront-qmail/current and/or tail -f /var/log/qmail/current, and try sending a message to see if there are any errors in the logs.

hth
Anton

[Anonymous]

If I ssh into my SME box I can "telnet mail.msys.ca 25" and get a response from the server.  If I try to telnet from my Windows box behind the SME server I get a "Could not open connection to the host on port 25".

If you try to do a connection from inside the network  to outside, so this should work in any way no matter what port you are using.

I assume your sme box is set up as a server & gateway, and you didn´t set up any new software at your windows box. Then have a look at the logfiles i.e. do a tail -f /var/log/smtpfront-qmail/current and/or tail -f /var/log/qmail/current, and try sending a message to see if there are any errors in the logs.

hth
Anton

I'm actually not using the SMTP server on the SME box, I'm using an external SMTP server, on the outside of my SME network.  I did try turning on the qmail smtp server, but I received the same error from my mail client, and nothing is hitting the qmail logs.  Something seems to be stopping all SMTP traffic in the SMTP NAT (or some where).  I don't have a problem with  accessing external IMAP, SSH, or WWW servers.  Go figure.

[Anonymous]

Here is my 2 cents:

I have noticed that the SME server ( latest ) actually 'proxies' the SMTP.
Meaning that it will intercept the email and send itself. I had this problem being on dial-up that my email bounced back because I was on a dynamic ip ( blacklisted ).
Therefore setting the correct forwaring mail server solved the problem.