Topic: e-mail from put of the office

[Eddy Van Hoeserlande]

Hi again,

my collegue, uses his email address (yvan.vanhoorickx@bsys.be), from his pc at home to send and receive mails via my E-smith 4 mail server. Sending messages to local addresses (e.g. eddy.vanhoeserlande@bsys.be) goes perfect, but sending messages to external mail addresses e.g. crw@yahoo.com, doesn't work at all. He receives a message telling him that it is impossible to send mails to yahoo.com as it isn't in the RCPTHOST list?

Any idea's where I can start looking? I changed some stuff to work with virtual mails, does that has to do something with it???

I can send mails to anybody!

TIA,

Eddy,

[Eddy Van Hoeserlande]

put ??? that was a typo, read out instead!!!

Sorry

[Gordon Rowell]

Eddy Van Hoeserlande wrote:

> Hi again,
>
> my collegue, uses his email address (yvan.vanhoorickx@bsys.be),
> from his pc at home to send and receive mails via my E-smith 4
> mail server. Sending messages to local addresses (e.g.
> eddy.vanhoeserlande@bsys.be) goes perfect, but sending messages
> to external mail addresses e.g. crw@yahoo.com, doesn't work at
> all. He receives a message telling him that it is impossible to
> send mails to yahoo.com as it isn't in the RCPTHOST list?

This is correct. Otherwise your e-smith server would be an "open mail relay" as anyone could use your box to send to anywhere. The e-smith configuration is set to only allow "relaying" from the local/internal network, and only accept external mail which is being sent to local/internal domains.

> Any idea's where I can start looking? I changed some stuff to
> work with virtual mails, does that has to do something with
> it???

e-smith 4.0 does not have support for external hosts using your box as a mail relay.

That said, it can be done, but is much easier/safer if your colleague has a fixed IP address at home. The hosts.allow pattern can be widened to allow that address to relay mail. This will require customisation at your site. Following up to the Advanced user forum would be the right thing to do.

In the longer term, there are a number of solutions such as authenticated smtp, smtp-poplock and webmail which are being looked at. They all have their drawbacks (security for authenticated smtp and smtp-poplock and speed for webmail).

> I can send mails to anybody!

And so you should be able to

Gordon

[Joseph Morrison]

One extra note:

If your colleague has a fixed IP address, you can specify it in the "local networks" screen on the e-smith-manager to grant him local network privileges - including sending email to arbitrary addresses.

- Joe Morrison

[Gordon Rowell]

Gordon Rowell wrote:

> [...]
> e-smith 4.0 does not have support for external hosts using your box as > a mail relay.
> [...]

Sorry, that should read

e-smith 4.0 does not have support for external hosts using your box _purely_ as a mail relay. It does have support to allow external hosts to be treated as if they were on your local network, including the ability to relay mail - see Joe's follow-up.

Gordon

[Eddy Van Hoeserlande]

Thanks for the help Gordon and Joseph, but is there a quick sollution here? My collegue (is that spelled correctly?) doesn't has a fixed IP address!

TIA,

[Joseph Morrison]

Eddy Van Hoeserlande wrote:

> Thanks for the help Gordon and Joseph, but is there a quick
> sollution here? My collegue (is that spelled correctly?)
> doesn't has a fixed IP address!

What about using the SMTP server of his Internet provider? You can still use the e-smith POP/IMAP server and someone else's SMTP server.

- Joe

[Gordon Rowell]

Eddy Van Hoeserlande wrote:

> Thanks for the help Gordon and Joseph, but is there a quick
> sollution here? My collegue (is that spelled correctly?)
> doesn't has a fixed IP address!

The short answer is no - there is no SAFE way to allow this. That's why it is not supported. For a full discussion of why open mail relays are bad, please see:

http://www.orbs.org

Without extra authentication it is not possible to allow someone from a dynamic address to use your server to send mail while blocking anyone else from doing so.

There should be no reason why your colleague needs to use your e-smith box for sending mail.  Your colleague (spelling close, but not quite) should set up their mailer to use the ISP's mail server rather than your e-smith server.

Gordon

[Charlie Brady]

Joseph Morrison wrote:

> Eddy Van Hoeserlande wrote:
>
> > Thanks for the help Gordon and Joseph, but is there a
> > quick sollution here? My collegue (is that spelled
> > correctly?) doesn't has a fixed IP address!
>
> What about using the SMTP server of his Internet provider? You
> can still use the e-smith POP/IMAP server and someone else's
> SMTP server.

Exactly correct solution, IMO. When we are out travelling, we use the local Post Office to send messages, don't we, rather than send them back home first?

Charlie

[Eddy Van Hoeserlande]

OK, that should do the job,

Thanks,

Eddy,

PS: Or I could add IP address 1.0.0.0 with netmask 0.0.0.0 to my local network

Joseph Morrison wrote:

> Eddy Van Hoeserlande wrote:
>
> > Thanks for the help Gordon and Joseph, but is there a
> quick > sollution here? My collegue (is that spelled
> correctly?) > doesn't has a fixed IP address!
>
> What about using the SMTP server of his Internet provider? You
> can still use the e-smith POP/IMAP server and someone else's
> SMTP server.
>
> - Joe
>

[Matt Copeland]

Eddy:

Your friend might try inserting the Outgoing Mail Server address of the Service Provider which he uses.
He can still use your mail server as Incoming, but many ISP's don't allow outgoing mail in an effort to combat
Open Mail Server Relay's (Spammers use these all the time, when a mail service administrator leaves the Outgoing ports open by mistake)

MaTt

[Eddy Van Hoeserlande]

Is there no possibility to check the account and the password if we want to use our server as SMTP server??

Eddy,

PS: It's kind of difficult to explain the real reason to a novice user! He won't understand the reason wy he can't use our server for sending his mails!

Matt Copeland wrote:

> Eddy:
>
> Your friend might try inserting the Outgoing Mail Server
> address of the Service Provider which he uses. He can still use
> your mail server as Incoming, but many ISP's don't allow
> outgoing mail in an effort to combat Open Mail Server Relay's
> (Spammers use these all the time, when a mail service
> administrator leaves the Outgoing ports open by mistake)
>
> MaTt

[Charlie Brady]

Eddy Van Hoeserlande wrote:

> Is there no possibility to check the account and the password
> if we want to use our server as SMTP server??

No, the SMTP protocol has no username/password concept - it is anonymous.

> PS: It's kind of difficult to explain the real reason to a
> novice user! He won't understand the reason wy he can't use our
> server for sending his mails!

He doesn't need to - he just has to comply.

Charlie