Guest doug Posted February 4, 2003 Posted February 4, 2003 Does TCH offer SMTP on a port other than port 25? Bellsouth DSL just announced that they along with many other DSL providers such as Earthlink are blocking port 25. I hate ISP email, it hold you hostage to their crummy service. Hotmail.. what a joke, yahoo mail is ok, but again needs port 25 to get out on. Does TCH offer Smtp on shared hosting packages on a port other than 25, such as 8080, or 81 anything to get around this assinine blocking of port 25. They claim it protects their network from spam. no, it prevents people from sending spam from their network, which is a losing battle. Quote
TCH-JimE Posted February 4, 2003 Posted February 4, 2003 AFAIK the answer is no :-( My university uses port 25 for its own mail so i can not use it either Jim Quote
Lianna Posted February 4, 2003 Posted February 4, 2003 I guess I better look into this Bellsouth announcement. Both work and home dsl lines are on SWBell. I imagine this is a SBC Global networks decision. I suppose I don't understand their logic. With as many people as there are now with domains of their own and email that is serviced throught those domains, I can't imagine that this decision could be making very many people happy. Lianna Quote
rayners Posted February 4, 2003 Posted February 4, 2003 While it's one thing to have a website sitting on a port other than 80 (heck, I've run sites on my machines on 8000, 8888, and 8080), it's something completely different to have an SMTP server sitting on a port other than 25. All mail software out there assumes that SMTP is listening on port 25 (as per the definition of SMTP), so any change to that would effectively cut off your server from internet email. I can understand their reasoning to some degree. I imagine they could be taking steps to discourage spammers, who do so enjoy being able to get to mail servers other than their ISPs. I am unsure at the moment about steps you can take to still get your email out. Depending on your ISP, you may be able to use their mail server as a Smart Host. That is that their server will collect all the mail from their customers and then send it out for them. POP access should still be working though, since that runs on port 110. Any ISP that blocks that port would be losing customers hand over fist. Quote
Guest doug Posted February 4, 2003 Posted February 4, 2003 ==quote== While it's one thing to have a website sitting on a port other than 80 (heck, I've run sites on my machines on 8000, 8888, and 8080), it's something completely different to have an SMTP server sitting on a port other than 25. All mail software out there assumes that SMTP is listening on port 25 (as per the definition of SMTP), so any change to that would effectively cut off your server from internet email. ==quote== Agreed, but we are talking mostly about end users sending from their eudora/outlook express/etc mail client to their own SMTP server hosted by TCH. Having SMTP listen on both 25 and on port 8181. That way standard internet smtp between servers works and clients can connect. The 8181 allows the enduser mail client to bypass the blocks the Bellsouth.net and Earthlink have put in. This blocking of Port 25 is not going away, infact it is if anything gaining steam. Bellsouth.NET has over 500,000 customers and Earthlink has around 300,000 customers. That alone 200,000 short of 1 million customers who will have port 25 blocked on their side. Forget smart SMTP configs on the ISP side, these guys do good just to keep their DNS and mail server running. What good is having your own mail server if you can't send with your domain name from your client? having it in the Replyto: field doesn't count. just my 2cents Quote
rayners Posted February 4, 2003 Posted February 4, 2003 Forget smart SMTP configs on the ISP side, these guys do good just to keep their DNS and mail server running. What good is having your own mail server if you can't send with your domain name from your client? having it in the Replyto: field doesn't count. "Smart Host" is just a term used for a configuration like that, which seems to be somewhat default setting (though I can't speak for the ISP side of things). I have yet to find an ISP that doesn't do that (though, admittedly, I haven't tried it on Comcast since I run my own mailserver on my machine). It would seem to me that this should be part of the service an ISP should be providing, especially if they are blocking outbound port 25 connections. When sending a mail in that fashion, in the non-visible mail headers, it still contains data saying that you are a customer of theirs. But you can change the From: address to whatever you'd like. Either way, I cannot say for sure your ISP will support it. But I do suggest you give it a try. What can it hurt? Quote
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