Topic: Port 25 blocked - Email dead in the water.

[Ted]

Comcast cable blocked port 25 on me.  Depending on which comcast tech I talk to I get conflicting answers.  1) For everybody.  2) This region.  3) Only you.  4)  "I don't know nothing 'bout birthing no ports". 

However the first Comcast tech I talked to (and the most helpful) told me to switch to port 587.  I changed my email clients to use port 587 and I was able to send emails.  I still could not receive them.

My server acts as a email server for my wife and I on our two domains.  It also is a web server for those domains and is the family file server.  It is a server only SME 7.3 living inside my home network behind my "firewall", a Linksys BEFSX4.1 that protects the network. 

Since I do not have a static IP from Comcast, my MX records and DNS issues are handled by www.easydns.  In this case I consulted with the techs at easydns and modified my MX records to direct incoming mail to my home server on port 587.

Success, it worked.... Except when it does not.  at least once a day for 3 to 4 hours no mail comes in.  I know it is out there, I can access some of it on the yahoogroups site, but nothing comes in. 

Below is a copy of the error log from easydns.  They seem to think that it is a server problem
Note that my ip has been changed.

::::::::::::::::::::
telnet mail.shadowsfall.org 587
Trying ab.cde.f.gh...
telnet: connect to address ab.cde.f.gh: Operation timed out
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host

*Snipped of some of the logs for monika@aviondreams.com (status deferred due to connection timed out on port 587.

Jun  6 07:13:41 forward1 postfix/smtp[25864]: B055D50CEC: to=<monika@aviondreams.com>, relay=none, delay=46, status=deferred (connect to mail.shadowsfall.org[ab.cde.f.gh]: Connection timed out)

Jun  4 06:41:07 forward2 postfix/smtp[31987]: 603CE80876: to=<monika@aviondreams.com>, relay=none, delay=1240, status=deferred (connect to mail.shadowsfall.org[ab.cde.f.gh]: Connection timed out)

Jun  4 06:48:51 forward1 postfix/smtp[31050]: 753BB19EA2: to=<monika@aviondreams.com>, relay=none, delay=30, status=deferred (connect to mail.shadowsfall.org[ab.cde.f.gh]: Connection timed out)

Jun  4 06:42:42 forward1 postfix/smtp[31165]: 144A5198FB: to=<monika@aviondreams.com>, relay=none, delay=3865, status=deferred (connect to mail.shadowsfall.org[ab.cde.f.gh]: Connection timed out)

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

snipped of sent emails.

Jun  6 06:29:34 forward2 postfix/smtp[1692]: 4016CB702F: to=<monika@aviondreams.com>, relay=mail.shadowsfall.org[ab.cde.f.gh], delay=7, status=sent (250 Queued! 1212748174 qp 13003 <20080606102922.DAEC49F754@signal.groundspeak.com>)

Jun  6 06:31:29 forward2 postfix/smtp[8938]: A6454B723C: to=<monika@aviondreams.com>, relay=mail.shadowsfall.org[ab.cde.f.gh], delay=7, status=sent (250 Queued! 1212748289 qp 13017 <20080606103122.6E89AA1191@signal.groundspeak.com>)

Jun  6 06:40:44 forward2 postfix/smtp[15022]: 3AF7BB7A86: to=<monika@aviondreams.com>, relay=mail.shadowsfall.org[ab.cde.f.gh], delay=26, status=sent (250 Queued! 1212748844 qp 13034 <1212748812.22.5706.m46@yahoogroups.com>)

Jun  6 07:40:46 forward1 postfix/smtp[24360]: B50554FD1A: to=<monika@aviondreams.com>, relay=mail.shadowsfall.org[ab.cde.f.gh], delay=17, status=sent (250 Queued! 1212752446 qp 8947 <3160960026@que04.irvine.ilinkmd.com>)
 
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-


snipped of sent emails for ted@shadowsfall.org.

Jun  6 07:48:27 forward2 policyd: rcpt=3113238, whitelist=update, host=66.218.67.216 (n25c.bullet.scd.yahoo.com), from=sentto-104861-165462-1212752906-tedshadowsfall.org@retur, to=ted@shadowsfall.org, size=0 

Jun  6 08:42:45 forward1 postfix/smtp[19049]: 5524F18601: to=<ted@shadowsfall.org>, relay=mail.shadowsfall.org[ab.cde.f.gh], delay=4, status=sent (250 Queued! 1212756165 qp 9304 <E1K4bAt-0007Ct-00@pop05.mail.atl.earthlink.net>)

Jun  6 08:46:18 forward1 postfix/smtp[23434]: D62C721584: to=<ted@shadowsfall.org>, relay=mail.shadowsfall.org[ab.cde.f.gh], delay=19, status=sent (250 Queued! 1212756378 qp 9321 <4848f941j40088-qpmcwithj@slateaspen.com>)

Jun  6 09:07:58 forward1 postfix/smtp[11254]: 2362051218: to=<ted@shadowsfall.org>, relay=mail.shadowsfall.org[ab.cde.f.gh], delay=15, status=sent (250 Queued! 1212757679 qp 9521 <4848fdfcu10c6b3-q36i6kp4r@pepperminthoneykismet.com>)

Jun  6 09:53:16 forward1 postfix/smtp[17428]: 36A2021B58: to=<ted@shadowsfall.org>, relay=mail.shadowsfall.org[ab.cde.f.gh], delay=5, status=sent (250 Queued! 1212760396 qp 9789 <48490889le5c4f-qyekox5o3@hazelcardinal.com>)

:::::::::::End Cut::::::::::

Any thoughts on this?  This was never a problem until Comcast blocked port 25 and I had to do the port 587 work around.

Are the two even related or is it just coincidence that this appeared.  Could a recent update be causing this problem?

Ted

[cactus]

Comcast cable blocked port 25 on me.  Depending on which comcast tech I talk to I get conflicting answers.  1) For everybody.  2) This region.  3) Only you.  4)  "I don't know nothing 'bout birthing no ports". 

However the first Comcast tech I talked to (and the most helpful) told me to switch to port 587.  I changed my email clients to use port 587 and I was able to send emails.  I still could not receive them.

My server acts as a email server for my wife and I on our two domains.  It also is a web server for those domains and is the family file server.  It is a server only SME 7.3 living inside my home network behind my "firewall", a Linksys BEFSX4.1 that protects the network. 

Since I do not have a static IP from Comcast, my MX records and DNS issues are handled by www.easydns.  In this case I consulted with the techs at easydns and modified my MX records to direct incoming mail to my home server on port 587.

Success, it worked.... Except when it does not.  at least once a day for 3 to 4 hours no mail comes in.  I know it is out there, I can access some of it on the yahoogroups site, but nothing comes in. 

Below is a copy of the error log from easydns.  They seem to think that it is a server problem
Note that my ip has been changed.

It is not advised to run e-mail servers on a dynamic IP number.

I think this problem might be due to your IP change not being propagated through all the internet instantly. From your copied error messages, it seems that all messages are queued, albeit that they are delayed.

Any thoughts on this?  This was never a problem until Comcast blocked port 25 and I had to do the port 587 work around.

Are the two even related or is it just coincidence that this appeared.  Could a recent update be causing this problem?

I do not know, but your best bet is to ask your provider for a fixed IP address.

[Ted]

:::::::Start Quote::::::::
It is not advised to run e-mail servers on a dynamic IP number.

I think this problem might be due to your IP change not being propagated through all the internet instantly. From your copied error messages, it seems that all messages are queued, albeit that they are delayed.
:::::End Quote:::::::::

It may not be advised, however this setup has been working for me for several years.  On the average my Comcast provided IP address changes every 12 to 14 months.  It may be DHCP but does not change much.  When it changes my email dies, I then check the IP address in my router vs the one on "file" with easydns.com in my MX records.  Change the MX record, apply the changes and within 10 minutes my email is working again for another year. No muss, very little fuss and about $500 a year cheaper then a static IP from Comcast.

What I don't know is what has changed or how to fix it?  Why does the email work all day then quit for several hours at night.  Tonight it died a few minutes after 6PM (pacific time) and started up around 10:38.  My IP has been constant throughout this whole time.   It is not a factor of a changing IP.  Either something that Comcast is doing is causing the problem or out of the blue my server has decided that it needs a couple hour break every day.

Ted

[Ted]

cactus.  I new see what you were saying.  In my first post I said "Note that my IP address has been changed."  I meant that I had changed it from the actual IP address to abc.de.f.gh .  Not that my IP address itself had changed at anytime in this fiasco.

Ted

[zatnikatel]

non standard ports are a pain
it looks more like a port problem i live in Australia and i have heard many bad thing about comcast on the net
delay can mean if the email server is not use helo command some place will delay it yahoo is bad on that i would say it has more to do with comcast than anything else some email server may bork at the different port number

i noticed in the info you sent that a postfix server was in the logs SME uses qmail is that how your DNS works though easydns does it go onto there mail server then get forwarded to SME via you ipaddress

[janet]

Ted

Comcast cable blocked port 25 on me

. 

http://wiki.contribs.org/PortRedirect

[zatnikatel]

Ted
. 

http://wiki.contribs.org/PortRedirect

that would work fine for him but i do hate ISP that block port 25 they want to control what people do which is not nice
the techrepublic has many articals and that don't have nice things to say about them

[pherder]

FYI Cox Cable does the same thing to it's home customers (i.e. block Port 25) so that extra (spam) traffic will not flood their networks from unsecured mail servers (what I was told by a Cox tech).

I will be studying the WIKI info listed above and trying it out.

Paul

[Ted]

Fixed it.

I had to attack the problem from the right angle.  Having my Linksys router send all in bound mail (port 25 traffic) to my server on port 587 only worked part of the time.  Why I don't know.  Seems to me that it should have either worked or not worked.  Not worked some time.  But that is how it acted. 

Solution was to configure my Server to use port 587 for SMPT not port 25.

Sonora Communications, Inc.  had the answer.

http://www.sonoracomm.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48&Itemid=32

Specifically this part.

:::::::::::::Quote

SME Server Configuration

Here we change the port that SME Server uses for SMTP.

Create a custom template directory:

mkdir -p /etc/e-smith/templates-custom/etc/services/

Copy the original template fragment to customize:

cp /etc/e-smith/templates/etc/services/10standard \
/etc/e-smith/templates-custom/etc/services/10standard

Edit the new fragment:

vim /etc/e-smith/templates-custom/etc/services/10standard

Change the line that says:

smtp 25/tcp mail

To say:

smtp 125/tcp mail

Then rebuild the /etc/services file:

/sbin/e-smith/expand-template /etc/services

Look at the /etc/services file to verify the changes:

cat /etc/services|grep smtp

Actuate the changes:

killall qmail-remote  #optional – only needed if server is bogged down with SPAM
/sbin/e-smith/config setprop smtpd TCPPort 125
/sbin/e-smith/config set ASSP service TCPPort 25 status enabled access public
/sbin/e-smith/signal-event remoteaccess-update
/sbin/e-smith/signal-event email-update

Your  SMTP server should now be listening on port 125.  Test it like this:

telnet localhost 125

You should get something like:

Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 server.your.org mailfront ESMTP

Type 'QUIT' then <enter> to exit.

:::::::::::end Quote::::::::

Though in my case I used 587 not 125
and I skipped this line
/sbin/e-smith/config set ASSP service TCPPort 25 status enabled access public
because I don't believe it applied to me.

What can I say it worked.

Now I only have one small problem to fix.

When I try to send a email via Horde I get this error.

Error  There was an error sending your message: unable to connect to smtp server localhost:25

Now I just have to figure out have to reconfigure Horde to use port 587.

Ted

[zatnikatel]

that is good that it worked myself i would have changed ISP to another one that does not block port 25

[calisun]

All my email was fine for several years, all over sudden I got an email from Comcast saying that they believe my computer is infected and it is sending spam. So they said they blocked port 25 and they told me to configure Outlook to use port 587. ( I don't use outlook, and I don't even use window$, I use Ubuntu)
I followed steps outlined above to change SME server to use port 587, but I still can't send or receive email, no error messages, but the message does not get there.
Any ideas?

[zatnikatel]

yes piss off comcast they are being sued i here now not a good ISP chose one that is not a pain in the ass or if they will point you MX records to your IP Address  but you need a static ip address first or use a dynamic dns like noip on dyndns

[calisun]

I do have dynamic dns service, and everything was fine for last couple of years.

[mrjhb3]

Now I only have one small problem to fix.

When I try to send a email via Horde I get this error.

Error  There was an error sending your message: unable to connect to smtp server localhost:25

Now I just have to figure out have to reconfigure Horde to use port 587.

Ted

/home/httpd/html/horde/imp/config/servers.php is where it's set for horde.

Either create a custom-template for the line in servers.php or do config setprop smtpd TCPPort 587 ; signal-event email-update.  Servers.php uses this value when it's expanded.

John

John

[calisun]

Ok, I tried everything and I can't get email to work anymore. I think Comcast blocked me totally. Every time I reboot server and cable modem, I keep getting the same IP address. I plug in my computer to the modem directly and I get a different IP, but I plug in my SME server afterwards, and it gets the same IP as before. I tried leaving my server and modem off over night, and next morning I get the same IP.
Looks like Comcast banished my server totally.

So I have found a cheap co-location facility where I will put my server. Much more than what I pay with Comcast, but cheaper than what other co-location facilities are asking for.

My question is, how do I reverse above mentioned instructions, so my email server listens to port 25 again?