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

Not much to do

[enec]

Most ISPs block outgoing port 25 because 99.99% of that traffic is viruses or otherwise malicious computers trying to send spam. Even more mail services block all dynamic pools used by major ISPs because of the same reason.

Just invest a few bucks a month into a cheap hosted VPS behind a static IP where you can run the server.

Re:Not much to do

[Anonymous Coward]

You have several options.
1) Get a real internet Service provider.
2) Host mail on a different server such as a vps
3) host mail on a different server and use Fetchmail to pull mail and send mail out bound.
4) Configure your server to send mail through your ISPs send mail server. Receiving mail may be a problem depending on ISP.

Re:Not much to do

[Anonymous Coward]

Or stop using a dynamic IP for a business. I know static IPv4 addresses are an endangered species, but come on man.

Re:Not much to do

[guybrush3pwood]

"First, they went after port 25, but I didn't care, because I didn't host my own mail server..."

blah blah blah, you know how it goes

Re:Not much to do

[PIBM]

A lot of companies offer static ips for which you can set all the reverse dns & email information, and they are also out of their normal subscriber pool, thus allowing you to send emails from the computer behind it. The cost of that option is usually lower than 5$ per ip per month around here.

Re:Not much to do

[pipatron]

We have high-speed business connections through Verizon and Comcast

Would these be dynamic too?

Re:Not much to do

[Seng]

Wow, they do their own network reporting? Perhaps SMTP?

Re:Not much to do

[SimonTS]

Moderator!! Above post +1 for sarcasm and +1 for being pedantic. Mustn't have had his coffee yet.

Re:Not much to do

[icebike]

Or stop using a dynamic IP for a business. I know static IPv4 addresses are an endangered species, but come on man.

Agreed.

Our company has the business pacakge from Comcast which includes a static IP.
Its not a problem for our mail server. We don't get blocked, and our reverse is properly set up, and our IP is in a
non-dynamic pool. Yeah, we pay a tad more for this. But we can run all the services we want, and our mail
goes out.

Most of the blockage you get with dynamic SENDING IPs is on the the RECEIVING end, not always your local
ISP.

Re:Not much to do

[moco]

Static IP is not enough. You also need your ISP to change the reverseDNS records or else you end up on many RBLs. Unfortunately, not many ISPs are willing to do that.

Anyway, you are better off sending your email "to the cloud", contracting an SMTP relaying service or renting a VPS if you can't afford a dedicated (T1/E1) connection.

Re:Not much to do

[EdIII]

It's not just the ISPs. This is a problem with SPAM in general.

If you are running a mail server on a dynamic IP address block that your ISP states cannot be running a mail server you are going to be on the Policy.Block.List.

Whether or not the ISP lets your traffic go out is irrelevant. It's whether or not my mail server will accept your connections. It won't. I do scrub incoming IP addresses with multiple RBL providers that I trust to give me fairly clean results. PBL's are included in this, so I won't be accepting your connections.

Does it suck? Yes. Yes it does. However, after applying the RBL my SPAM rate went down a LOT. I mean a LOT.

So don't blame the ISP entirely and blow it out of proportion. They are making whatever attempts they can reduce the impact on their infrastructure from SPAM and Malware infected computers in general as it affects the whole network, including you.

So unfortunately due to a bunch of dickhead marketers and organized crime in foreign countries the email system is largely broken. We are just limping along being assaulted every day by huge numbers of SPAM. This raises the barrier to entry to operate a mail server substantially, or at least one that will actually receive and send mail reliably.

My best recommendation to people out there trying to run services off their own home connection is to purchase a VPS subscription. Split with a bunch of friends and setup a whole web server, mail server, p2p social networking, voip, etc. Really make it worth it. Then you won't have the same number of problems from an IP address that is colocated and set up with proper rDNS. Not to mention far greater uptime and reliability.

I would recommend this for small business too. Even with a business account and static IP address you are not really guaranteed that you will get reliable service either.

Of course, if you get a VPS, or put yourself in the "Cloud", you need to be careful where. Amazon apparently does not give two shits about fraud and SPAM and we so more and more SPAM and VOIP hacking coming from Amazon services everyday.

Re:Not much to do

[lofoforabr]

So unfortunately due to a bunch of dickhead marketers and organized crime in foreign countries the email system is largely broken.

Foreign countries? Last time I checked, the USA was the clear leader in sending out spam. But indeed, this is not a problem with the servers. We are just trying to protect ourselves from spam. Blame the spammers. I report all unflagged spam to SpamCop, and by doing that I managed to make a few of them lose their accounts. It's kinda funny to see their responses, claiming they did not spam.

Re:Not much to do

[DJRumpy]

The correct action is to call Comcast or whoever your provider is and get an exception. Comcast at the time I had them, and Time Warner now, have no issue with someone running a server on a business contract. If you are using a personal (home) account and running one however, it shouldn't surprise you if you were blocked (I know the article says a business account but it's relevant to the discussion). Both stated that was against the TOS to run servers on 'home' accounts.

Re:Not much to do

[machine321]

Doesn't even have to be virtual, I pay $30/month for real hardware with two IP addresses. That's cheaper than most plans with Comcast and Verizon.

Re:Not much to do

[yakatz]

You also need your ISP to change the reverseDNS records or else you end up on many RBLs. Unfortunately, not many ISPs are willing to do that.

Verizon is more than willing to change the DNS PTRs for anyone who calls the business support line and claims to be from the business that has the service.
When I called for the company I work for, they asked for our billing address and phone number, nothing more (and those are public information).

Re:Not much to do

[rocca]

If you aren't able to get a proper reverse DNS entry for your public outbound mail server then you probably shouldn't be running one. If you have a real static IP (as opposed to "my IP doesn't seem to change") - then it shouldn't be a problem getting the DNS setup correctly.

To answer the original question about "what should you do", the answer is simple - if the ISP won't issue a PTR record because of the type of connection being used then the customer should smart-host their mail through the ISP mail servers to ensure global reachability. As you say, often the edge device is a swiss-army knife and in many cases the admin isn't competent enough to properly secure/maintain it. This is exactly what blocking outbound SMTP from dynamic space is meant to accomplish and I'm pleasantly surprised to hear that Comcast/Verizon have finally started to implement what every other responsible ISP has been doing for a decade.

Re:Not much to do

[pehrs]

I am not sure if you are aware of it, but the USA is a foreign country...

Re:Not much to do

[AVee]

Indeed, I've been running a mail server from my home (consumer) DSL line for ages. But I've got a proper ISP which provides a static ip, configurable reverse DNS and which actually has a functioning abuse desk which will actually quarantine lines which send spam. I haven't had any issues getting mail delivered anywhere.

However, what stops you from using your ISP's smtp server as smarthost for outgoing mail? You really shouldn't need external services to get your mail out. A block on port 25 (incoming) is a showstopper, unless your ISP provides a facility to remove the block or to route around it.

I know of a dutch ISP which has a setup where you point your MX to their mailserver which will relay all incoming mail to your server. That setup makes sure an open relay in their network is harmless while still allowing their users to run their own mailservers.

Re:Not much to do

[geohump]

Both comcast and verizon's business services provide static IP addresses, and those addresses are not supposed to be in the dynamic IP blocks which each ISP provides to the various block list services.

If the ISP itself is blocking the outbound port 25 port, and/or reporting the IP they gave you as dynamic, complain bitterly, and sue. Begin the law suit immediately after they don't fix the problem within a few days after a written complaint. Solict other businesses who have been adversely affected and mount a class action.

Enec: - the static IP's given by Comcrap and Verizoned are not in the dynamic IP pools unless those respective companies specifically listed them in the dynamic pools, which they should NEVER do with their business class IP's. The blame here clearly lays at the feet of the respective ISP's eg: Comcrap and Veryzoned.

Sounds like an ISP problem.

[raitchison]

If your ISP (Verizon and Comcast) are blocking port 25 outbound it doesn't sound like they think you have a "Business" connection. Check your contract/TOS for any provisions that would prevent you from running a server (common for residential cable connections but not for business) and if there isn't one call and complain. If they won't unblock port 25 for your mail server (assuming it's properly configured) you need to find a new ISP.

Re:Sounds like an ISP problem.

[jimicus]

If your ISP is preventing 25 outbound, you don't have an ISP.

TBH, I'm not quite sure what you do have. I've met that sort of thing once before, I would describe them as a Web access provider.

Re:Sounds like an ISP problem.

[KingMotley]

EXIM can be configured as such.

Dump Comcast

[cstec]

Comcast's idea of the Internet is an increasingly detached 'consumer endpoint' version of the Internet. If you're not in a rural area, then find a true Internet provider and move on.

Re:Dump Comcast

[Steauengeglase]

While I understand it 99% of the time, I'm not sure if I should get hit with violating the ToS for firing up a Quake server once a month. I mean, yes, I "should" get hit, but I'm not sure if it leaves me very satisfied with my service, especially when Netflix and torrent guys use much more bandwidth.

PS: Might want to find a better term to use than "freetards". It is kind of vague. Some days of the week tossing that term around means you are out to defend a man's right to feed his family and expand the market place, you know truth and virtue and all that jazz. On other days it means you are supporting rent seeking and people will assume you are a shill who don't want their stock dipping. All in all I find it best just to avoid the term. Granted it is a free country, you can say what you want, but for some people around here you might as well be saying, "faggot".

Comcast Business works for me...

[Frosty Piss]

I haven't had this issue with Comcast Business (static IP). Port 25 works just fine. But, some recipients don't like us.

Re:Comcast Business works for me...

[edmudama]

My Comcast Business account explicitly allows servers on the static IP, including mail, web, etc. Anything allowed unless it's against the law in the local jurisdiction. If you go over bandwidth caps, they reserve the right to promote you automatically to the next tier of service. At the top tier, there are no caps.

It costs a little extra, but it seems to me like a business big enough to run it's own mail server should be able to afford the ~$75-100/mo for a business cable modem account.

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..

Re:Pay for a business connection?

[slashdotard]

Comcast & Verizon have been known to routinely treat business customers as residential customers. ,

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.

Re:This is a big deal for me. :-(

[anom]

I remember once upon a time when I was first setting up my mail server I experienced this exact problem. As I recall, there was some kind of hotmail-ish website I went to that helped me get its IP allowed by their system.

Here are some great resources on sending email to hotmail:

http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx (generic troubleshooting page for sending to hotmail)

https://postmaster.live.com/snds/ (Signing up here lets you see what hotmail thinks of a specific IP, assuming you control RDNS for it. This might have been what I did once upon a time)

Finally, if none of those help, you can ask them directly here:

https://support.msn.com/eform.aspx?productKey=edfsmsbl&ct=eformts&st=1&wfxredirect=1

Regards,

Anom

Re:This is a big deal for me. :-(

[RavenChild]

I would have to echo you on this. I've been running my own mail servers for about 8 years and have had to switch ISPs at least 5 times. The first was from a move, the second one (Insight) changed their TOS to make companies upgrade to a business class line. I told them to go screw themselves and got a business-class DSL (from one of the *Bell companies). When they changed their TOS at Insight though, they ran port scanners on every subscriber. If you had any ports open such as 25 or 80, they placed you on a watch list. Once on that list, if they detected any traffic, they cut your access and tried to extort business-class fees from you. The place I'm at now is not a business connection but I still have those ports for use. The only problem is that every major email provider blocks residential IPSs for mail. I haven't sent an email to a major provider from my servers for 1.5 years. However, all the people I know running their own servers get my emails just fine. In their attempts to "stop spammers" they have made it impossible for anyone but companies with money able to send email. I can't even relay my outbound SMTP through my ISP anymore.

Times change and now the majority of users think email only comes from hot/gmail and their work. ISPs don't have any reason to cater to those who want their own email unless they pay up.

Re:This is a big deal for me. :-(

[bcrowell]

I've had similar problems.

The clueful email service providers are yahoo and gmail. They both support dkim and sign all their outbound mail with dkim. They both have mechanisms for reporting dkim-signed spam from their users ( http://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py?hl=en&contact_type=abuse and http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/classic/spam.html ). If you dkim-sign your own outgoing email, you can go through a process with yahoo http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/forms_index.html to tell them that, and if the info you provide satisfies them, your mails are less likely to end up in users' spam boxes.

The one that doesn't work for me is AOL. Any email I send to their users goes straight to the bitbucket. I have never been able to find any mechanism for convincing them that I'm not a spammer. I'm sending mail from a dedicated server with a permanent IP address, SPF, DKIM, and reverse DNS all set up properly.

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.

It baffles me that some large email providers like hotmail and AOL don't implement DKIM. The added CPU load is negligible on a modern machine. I'm not saying that DKIM is a cure-all, but it works much better than these silly, ad hoc measures like blocking all vanity domains. If someone with a yahoo account sends spam to someone's gmail account, the user can report it to yahoo, yahoo can verify the dkim signature so they know it really came from that account, and they can deactivate the account. If someone sends spam to a gmail account, and they claim to be a yahoo user but they aren't, google can detect that it isn't properly signed and trash the mail.

Re:This is a big deal for me. :-(

[geohump]

.

It baffles me that some large email providers like hotmail and AOL don't implement DKIM. The added CPU load is negligible on a modern machine.

If it's "negligible", why don't you pay for them to implement it? Do you really think your small business solution that adequately handles hundreds of messages a day on a single machine will scale to millions of messages a day on a server farm?

You mean like Google groups and Yahoo who both use it? I think Google understands scaling pretty well. I suspect they aren't having any issues with the compute load of DKIM, to the tune of billions of emails.

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.

Re:Business Account

[Manip]

I read the summary. Don't believe him. He is using a consumer connection. I've never heard of an ISP blocking ports on a business connection since the entire point of the damn connection is to get servers on to the internet and to allow VPN passthrough. If they blocked ports required for e-mail they might have well discontinue offering business accounts at all.

Most business connections also come with fixed IPs for exactly that purpose, and those aren't ever blocked by spam lists, since again the entire point of a business line is to bring servers online - not clients.

Business Cable blocking Port 25?

[EMR]

My dad's server is on Business Cable and Port 25 is not blocked and we have had no issues running our mail server on that connection.. Now one thing that we did do to aid in preventing us from being blocked is requesting our 5 IPs setup with reverse DNS entries to our domains instead of the Generic "ISP looking" ones that comcast assigns by default. You should contact Comcast and Verizon to set that up.

Also, make sure when you are testing if port 25 is "open" that you aren't yourself on an ISP that blocks 25 outbound. And make sure you setup port 587 (SMTP submission.. Authenticated SMTP) so that users can send mail from any ISP.

Yes, but the problem is spam filters

[proxima]

Even if you have a non-cable modem IP, it can be difficult to send (opt-in) business email from a small mail server. The reason is that spam filters at major email providers like Yahoo are turning to whitelisting, and you have to contact each major provider to avoid getting your email sent straight to the spam filter.

Since the implementations of spam filters at the server level seem to vary quite a bit, I tend to avoid sending particularly important single emails through my own small email server for fear they just end up in the spam folder of the recipient.

That said, in general I wouldn't trust a business-class cable modem connection to host an email server for business purposes. Virtualized servers are commonplace now and quite affordable (I pay $15/mo for mostly personal use). Set up the backup on your own connection.

Re:more like casualty of war

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I suspect that it is a mixture of "collateral damage in the war on spammers" and "convenient mechanism for price discrimination".

Back in the day, the ISPs could use the simple "dialup=cheap gits(unless they inquire about worldwide availability of dial-in numbers, in which case Soak 'em), T1=Soak 'em" heuristic to more or less distinguish between business and home users.

Now that a T1 is pitifully slow by consumer broadband standards(and, depending on location and providers, not much more reliable than a faster and cheaper consumer broadband connection, never mind two or more coming in over different wires for redundancy...) they need something else to keep business users paying more. Crippling common server functions is, conveniently, both a plausible reaction to spambots and a good way of making consumer-priced connections less useful...

Relay thru smtp.comcast.com

[WaffleMonster]

Most likely your system is misconfigured and sending misdelivery reports rather than rejecting the smtp request in realtime or worse (open relay)

Comcast and Verizon are reacting by shutting you down...you have to beg to get it restored from what I understand...

There is no good solution for most of us other than to just relay thru comcasts SMTP server.

Comcasts user networks are in the subscriber block lists of many RBLs however typically business class accounts are exempted from these lists.

For outgoing mail if you can't send directly your best bet is to configure your SMTP server to relay all messages thru comcast smtp.comcast.com which is less than ideal.

Comcast runs with aggressive dns timeouts and their mail system does not properly translate DNS timeout to a temporary condition.. This sometimes cause emails to valid destinations in distant countries with slower links to bounce.

Small CoLo's aren't safe either

[Bigbutt]

I host my personal server with a Mosaic forum (Mosaic and Stained Glass.org) out of a CoLo in Florida. It's not the cheapest solution but I do get 100% access to the server to do what I want and a reasonable time on reboots when necessary.

Still, Microsoft will randomly block my mail for a month at a time with no recourse. I've attempted to contact them but they send me to a troubleshooting page which tells me I'm configured correctly but they still won't accept email. This wouldn't be too bad of a problem except that other ISPs use them to manage their e-mail. So I can't get any e-mail to Shaw.ca or AT&T in Canada. They don't even have a whitelist option for their users.

And there are a few smaller ISPs in the US that use anti spam blocking sites that don't have any way to let them know that I'm not spamming.

Most others though have contact information in their bounce and I've used it to check the various sites in the block list, then forward the results to the postmaster at the offended site. Then I get it opened up for the folks on the forum.

Heck, one ISP replied that I needed to get in touch with them and their Postmaster account won't accept further e-mail. I had to send them a note from my Yahoo account. Then they said it was a problem with my ISP and they should fix it. My ISP had no idea what they could do to fix it.

Even the company I work at, who uses MX-Logic can't receive e-mails from me because I'm not able to convince MX-Logic I'm not a spammer.

On the plus side, if I did want to spam Microsoft, they have a program where if I pay them, they'll open their servers up so I can send e-mail to their clients.

I'm not doing any real business on the server. I have my consulting website there but traffic is pretty much non-existent. The biggest impact is when the forum folk try to send the other folks e-mails (the PM notifications). I have a note in the Site Agreement to let folks know on shaw.ca, frontier, and the others that they might want to use a Yahoo e-mail to manage their forum account.

[John]

CableOne's been that way for years

[RogueWarrior65]

CableOne has blocked outgoing mail for years. It's annoying to have to reconfigure your mail program every time you travel somewhere. And it hasn't stopped the flow of prescription drug e-mails and Nigerian-ish scam e-mails. Hell, if all of those e-mail from barristers in foreign countries telling me a long lost relative left me several million dollars were real, I could by that 30,000 acre ranch in western Wyoming...and a helicopter. And why is it always a seven-figure inheritance? Wouldn't more stupid people believe $20,000?

VPS

[dlevitan]

Get a VPS. You can get one for $20/month and set up a full e-mail server on it. You'll get better hardware and better connectivity than your own server. Your IP will be seen as coming from a data center, not a cable modem pool of addresses. You can also host your own website, and leave the server you have at your office for internal things only. For mail access, just set up IMAP and SMTP with TLS, with the latter on port 587 (known as the submission port) which is generally not blocked like 25 is.

How to setup a SMB mail server

[DigiShaman]

Being that I setup SBS 2003 and SBS 2008 boxes, let me explain what you really need to make it work.

1. A business class ISP subscription. Along with this classification, you get a netblock of IP/s that (usually) wont be preemptively blacklisted by SORBS (I hate them).
2. Reverse DNS (PTR) record. Not having one is almost guaranteed to get your sent e-mails blocked. Getting one created is easy as pie if you subscribe to a business class ISP.
3. SPF record. They're many online wizards to help you create one. My favorite is from Microsoft.
4. DNS that will host TXT records. Needed for that SPF record you just created.

Once all completed, be sure you test out your handy work over at http://www.mxtoolbox.com/ Good luck.

Re:ITs the end of the small business mail server

[Sarten-X]

Outsourcing is often not feasible. As an example off the top of my head, any American company working with medical data needs to be certain that personal medical data does not leave their control, or they get hit with huge penalties from HIPAA and HITECH. That eliminates a lot of outsourcing options, and especially anything cloud-related, because one mistaken message, even from someone outside the company, can have devastating effects.

A few things to try

[chrisgeleven]

1) Get a static IP address for your mail server if you don't already have one. Many mail servers use DNSBL blacklists that distrust anyone with a Dynamic IP address.
2) Get your ISP to configure Reverse DNS for your mail server's IP address. Many mail servers reject mail because Reverse DNS isn't configured properly.
3) Make sure your server is set to not run as an open relay.
4) Have a proper abuse@ and postmaster@ e-mail addresses so e-mail providers who claim to have spam complaints against your domain can actually send them to you.
5) Setup an SPF record (openspf.org has a great wizard for this) for your domain. SPF records basically specify which mail servers are allowed to send mail from your domain. This will help cut down on spammers spoofing e-mail addresses at your domain and increases the odds of legit e-mail not being marked as spam.

Not all of these will guarentee delivery of any e-mail, but they can certainly improve the odds.

Re:Ports

[drhlx]

Actually it would require a rewriting of the SMTP protocol :P However, the standard solution is to use port forwarding on an external unencumbered host accepting inbound port 25 and forwarding to your unblocked port (e.g. 1025). You can use a smarthost to similarly forward external email via another 'unblocked' host. This generally gets you closer to the benefits of a "local" mail server vs simply hosting your mail server external to your network.

Re:ITs the end of the small business mail server

[SnoopJeDi]

Outsourcing it is cheap because it needs to compete with these roll-your-own systems. If small mail were totally blacklisted, I wouldn't be surprised to find mail services prices bump a bit. Afterall, they'd be the only people with an ISP allowing port 25...

Forward 25 port to SSL one

[paziek]

Forward 25 port to SSL one - thats how we do it at company where I work. 25 port is blocked cause of spam.

ISP Link

[Imagix]

First question... do you have a residential or a business link? That usually changes the network preferences. As I recall most residential agreements prohibit running servers on the network to begin with.

Re:ITs the end of the small business mail server

[houstonbofh]

Assuming that you trust the outsource company. It is only as secure as the monkeys running it. Go ahead and get gmail for business if you want. I will host and control my own server, thank you.

This is just plain wrong

[sgent]

As long as you have a business associate agreement there is no problem outsourcing medical information. Hospitals and clinics routinely outsource everything up to and in including electronic medical record systems.

Carma Whoring

[I)_MaLaClYpSe_(I]

That's how this looks in a telnet port 25 session from a DSL line:

telnet mx2.hotmail.com 25

220 bay0-mc3-f21.Bay0.hotmail.com Sending unsolicited commercial or bulk e-mail
to Microsoft's computer network is prohibited. Other restrictions are found at h
ttp://privacy.msn.com/Anti-spam/. Violations will result in use of equipment loc
ated in California and other states. Mon, 21 Feb 2011 17:47:40 -0800
EHLO mine.home.net
250-bay0-mc3-f21.Bay0.hotmail.com (3.12.0.56) Hello [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]
250-SIZE 36909875
250-PIPELINING
250-8bitmime
250-BINARYMIME
250-CHUNKING
250-AUTH LOGIN
250-AUTH=LOGIN
250 OK
MAIL FROM: i@home.net
550 DY-001 Unfortunately, messages from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx weren't sent. Please conta
ct your Internet service provider. You can tell them that Hotmail does not relay
  dynamically-assigned IP ranges. You can also refer your provider to http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx#errors.

Now if you've got a dynamic IP or a static IP in a dynamic IP range or maybe even a static IP from a static IP range from a larger known-to-be-dynamically-assigned IPs...