Topic: SMTP + External POP Mail

[ki11er]

Hi

We currently run a SME 6.0.1 server that is setup as a mail server. Currently all the e-mail gets set to the server using a MX record for our domain name.

What we would like to be able to do is check external POP3 e-mail boxes (the ISP won't forward the e-mail) but also keep the e-mail setup that we currently have.

If anyone has some ideas?

Thanks

[smeghead]

.. their are a coupla fetmail contribs around that can do this, just search here for them ..

[Gadgetman]

.. their are a coupla fetmail contribs around that can do this, just search here for them ..

I have SME 6.5 installed...
I would like to simply use an email client (eg outlook express) on the local network to access external pop3 email accounts without doing a fetchmail.
How do I do this?

[p-jones]

I use the fetchmail patches and they worked fine for a long time. When I rebuil;t my server, I had a closer look at what my ISP had to offer in terms of the webmail and found I was able to put a forwarding rule on the Mailbox at the ISP end - problems solved.

[MSmith]

Um ... maybe I'm missing something here, but what's wrong with just setting up an email client on a workstation with the appropriate POP3 info?  The SME server won't interfere with your ability to check other POP servers.

[Gadgetman]

Well that is exactly what I am trying to do! And I find that I cannot connect to external POP servers! I am not sure if it is a firewall issue or what. The strange thing is though I am also using SME to host a email server and I can send and receive mail to and from it from the outside world!

Mystified!

[adamperry]

Are your LAN workstations pointed at your SME Server as their IP gateway?  If so, POP3 should work fine.

If you're using SME Server more like a pure proxy server however, be aware that Squid acts as a web proxy but not as POP3 proxy.  You may want to use a separate proxy server such as SpoonProxy or FreeProxy (which do support POP3) and point the gateway of that server to the SME Server.  This works fine for me.

[Gadgetman]

Yes my LAN workstations are pointed to my SME Server as their IP gateway?
But POP3 acces to external mail servers does not work.

[adamperry]

Go back to the basics.  Can you ping the POP3 server you're trying to connect to, by name, from the SME Server console?  If you turn on logging in your e-mail client (Outlook Express has an option for this, I assume Thunderbird, Eudora, etc. do too), what kind of results do you get?

[MSmith]

Something's definitely wrong here; I and MANY others access external POP servers daily.  Is your SME server "factory stock" or have you modified it?  If so, what has been done to it?

[rkuenzli]

Two days ago I was running into a similar problem (I guess). We always (for years) have been sending emails from LAN directely to the ISP with no problem. Suddently (when I tried to use the mail server vom SME) I couldn't send any more to smtp.myprovider.com.

With the commands ...

/sbin/e-smith/config setprop smtpfront-qmail Proxy disabled
/sbin/e-smith/signal-event remoteaccess-update

... I could send again emails from the LAN to the ISP. However I still can't figure out, what is broken with my qmail system. I am using 6.0.1.

[raem]

rkuenzli

> However I still can't figure out, what is broken with my qmail system. I am using 6.0.1.

sme versions earlier than 6.0 did not have the smtp proxy, so you could connect directly to your ISPs smtp server. Not so on 6.x unless you disable the smtp proxy.

Keep in mind that disabling the server's smtp proxy will allow viruses to propagate from your infected workstations (using built in email clients that use smtp) directly to the net.

With smtp proxy enabled on the server, then viruses on your workstations cannot send via email directly to the net and will more than likely be stopped from propagating.

[rkuenzli]

I am not so afraid about viruses since a few years I left Micro$oft behind me and I have only Linux machines running now .

But indeed I was not aware of the smtp proxy at all and by trashing my qmail (which I could fix in the meantime, thanks to contrib.org) I learned a lot. This is what I like with Linux: it also takes time, but you can understand it at the end.