Ask Slashdot: Is There a War Against Small Mail Servers?

softegg writes "My company hosts our own mail server. We have high-speed business connections through Verizon and Comcast. Recently, Verizon and Comcast have been blocking port 25, causing our private mail server to stop functioning. Additionally, a lot of ISPs just started blocking any mail coming from any IP in the address block of cable modems. This caused us to start laundering our mail through a third-party service called DNSExit. Now, McAfee's MAPS anti-spam system tells us they are blocking DNSExit for spam. Essentially, we are finding ourselves increasingly cut off from sending any outgoing mail. What is a small company supposed to do if you want to host your own mail?"

Comments

Pay for a business connection?

[way2trivial]

they only (so far as I know) block ports on residential accounts
you don't mention it, I suspect you are using a residential class account.

I have a comcast business account.. 2 actually.
pay for an account where the TOS allow servers... they won't block the port

before I had a 2nd commercial account, (at my home)
my biggest gripe was connections from my home to work
  took too many hops to go 8 miles in very different ip ranges...

see if comcastbusiness.net is on the block lists you fear..

This is a big deal for me. :-(

[Omnifarious]

I've run my own mailserver for over a decade. It's IP has changed every few years if I switch ISPs, but otherwise it remains stable. I have a static IP on a DSL line and have reverse mappings set up. I have SPF records. I've registered with a whitelist. I've done everything I can. And still nobody who uses hotmail gets email from me. And I have increasing difficulty getting email to anybody else.

And I do not believe a single spam message has ever made it out from my network. I even block outgoing port 25 for the network segment my roommates use (when I have roommates) unless I'm administrating their computers.

This whole trend is really upsetting to me, and totally broken. I never have a problem sending email to someone with a gmail.com address, and they have the best spam filtering of any email provider I've ever used. The shortcut of blocking any DSL IP is clearly unnecessary if Google can do such a good job without it.

Residential or business service?

[peacefinder]

I had a customer (a small town government) recently have port 25 outbound blocked by Comcast. After going around with Comcast for a bit, it turned out that they were subscribed to a residential-class service, which has port 25 outbound blocked by an implacable policy. The only way to get the port unblocked in this case would have been to move them to a business-class service with a static IP. (Fortunately the block wasn't a big deal for them, we were just using it for automated status reporting rather than running an inhouse mailserver.)

both comcast and verizon

[nimbius]

are inappropriate for small businesses yet continue to grow in popularity due to their heavy marketing and low cost.

Contact your local bell, or find a t1/t3 reseller, and let them know you need a fractional leased line. the cost is higher, but you get a real service level agreement to which the provider is contractually obligated.

using a dedicated/shared server for email hosting has its drawbacks. the shared server may become overloaded by spammer accounts and other users, and its generally not a priority for most hosting companies as they get very little money off a shared hosting sale. dedicated hosting is just as bad because you're commonly forced through one relay host, or a set of relay hosts that routinely become overwhelmed by spammers on your providers other dedicated hosting boxes. the dedicated and shared boxes are also notorious for floating in and out of various blacklists and sender reputation services, so you can expect mail to break-down about once every few weeks.