[H-GEN] Bigpond outgoing mail problems

[Robert Stuart]

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Harry Phillips wrote:
>
>> At home (with bigpong adsl) I post my outgoing email directly to the
>> destination MX server rather than via bigpong's smtp relays.
>> Recently this has started to bite me... I'm getting an increasing
>> number of rejects because the telstra IP address I have been
>> (dynamically) allocated was blacklisted, known to have belonged to
>> an open relay at some point.  <sigh>  It's interesting that there
>> were (still are?) threats to introduce an rfc to specifically ban
>> telstra (along with a small number of other large ISPs) because
>> their IPs have been known to be sources of much spam abuse.

What can you expect BP to do about this?  Block outgoing smtp unless it 
is going to their smtp servers?  They already discourage this by making 
you pay $$ for it or at least making it part of your monthly limit.

> I had that same problem. Some mail servers refuse to accept mail 
> directly from *any* block of dynamiclly assigned IP addresses. That's 
> why I always setup postfix to forward the mail to the ISP's SMTP server. 
> That then begs the question, if I did setup a Linux 
> gateway/firewall/smtp relay would it receive the same refusal to accept 
> the mail because of 1 problem e-mail address? My guess is that it would.

No it shouldn't refuse the whole email because of one problem email addr.

This is the best way to solve this problem.  Simply set your "smart" 
host (sendmail's way of saying send everything to this mailserver) to 
your ISP's smtp server.  Point your mail client (mozilla, lookout or 
whatever) to _your_ smtp server and away you go.  This will mean your 
local MTA can't possibly tell you that some address is invalid (unless 
its to be delivered locally), and simply pass it on to the 'smart' host 
(your ISP's smtp server).

This also has the added advantage that you shouldn't be paying for the 
traffic as its going to bigpond's smtp server and not being delivered 
directly by your firewall/gateway box.

Generally a mail server should only reject a message because of an 
incorrect address if it is the mx host for that address and can't 
deliver it.  Or you've cut and pasted a couple hundred email addresses 
that haven't been sanitized and removed invalid punctuation etc.

As far as volume goes, if you still can't get bulk email through BP, 
complain.  There is no reason for them to be doing this and unless it 
specifically prohibited by the AUP, you have every right to do so; 
however, I suspect MTAs will just deal with it by deferring etc.

Regards,

Robert
-- 
Robert Stuart
Systems Administrator
Ph: 61 7 3864 0364
Fax: 61 7 3221 2553


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