I can send mail out but not get anything back.

[AV1611]

I am trying to setup my own mail server. I have SBS2k3 with 2 Nics in it. I also have a Netscreen Firewall. I am running exchange. My local domain is Server1.bobby.local .... I registered,

http://www.bobby2.net

with Register.com. THey put in their dns records my mail server as mail.bobby2.net with my Public IP. I then put a MX record in my server of mail.bobby2.net. I ran the CEICW and check mail so that it would open that port. I opened port 25 for mail coming in to go to my external side NIC. I can send email to my bellsouth account but I can't send it to my hotmail accounts, nor can I receive email if I reply back to the email that made it to my bellsouth account. Any ideas?

Thanks, AV

 

[dennisbbb]

Assuming you set up Internet Mail Service correctly, can you telnet in?

example 1: >telnet mail.bobby2.net 25
if you can't do this your mx record is not updated.

example 2: >telnet x.x.x.x 25 where x.x.x.x is your ip#
if you can't do this a port is blocked by ISP or yourself

 

[AV1611]

Thanks Denis for the reply. I can't do either one of these. My DSL Modem is in Bridge mode and it all comes to my Netscreen Router. I believe it is setup right but I am not 100% on this.

How should my MX records look on my Server if the are mail.xxxxx.net on my DNS Servers? I am assuming I have something wrong on my Server as well as the Firewall.

Thanks, AV

 

[dennisbbb]

It shouldn't matter what you have on your DNS server because emails incoming are headed for your mail server ip# on port 25.

If you can't do above examples then you definitely have a routing issue. The outside mail servers (i.e hotmail, yahoomail, etc) will give up trying to send mail to your mail server.

 

[AV1611]

So are you saying it is a problem with register.com not setting up the routing of my DNS properly?

Thanks, AV

 

[dennisbbb]

Double check with them and see if it's in the record.

However, even without MX record you should be able to check if your server is setup right by trying Example 2 above.
In fact, even without DNS record, if you email yourself directly to the server ip number you should receive the email if there are no routing issues.

Example: email yourself with the email server ip address
bobby@x.x.x.x, where bobby is a user and x.x.x.x is your mail server's ip number.

 

[AV1611]

UPDATE:

I have Bellsouth DSL and they block this port. Don't use Bellsouth. They are the sorriest ISP available.

AV

 

[Dyadmin]

Something I don't understand...your ISP is blocking ports?!? I've never heard of this happening. You have a firewall..are you sure port 25 is not blocked or stealthed? What happens when you telnet INSIDE your network, no matter what your ISP does, you should be able to telnet to port 25 within your network, if you can't then the problem is at your end. You have to make you netgear router fully open port 25.

That's my 0.02

 

[dennisbbb]

Some ISP block the default smtp port to prevent spammers from making a mail server to pass out spam via port 25, i.e. Internet Mail server to Internet Mail server communication by default is on port 25.

Another ISP I know of is Earthlink.

 

[AV1611]

Dyadmin,

What you say is interesting. I have talked with Bellsouth and they affirm that they block it. I have contacted Netscreen and they made sure the setup was correct. They also came into my Firewall and watched as I tried to telnet to port 25 from another IP address and they said it never even made it to it.

Any ideas....

AV