Email hosed - bet I'm not the only one!

[David A. Sinck]

\_ SMTP quoth Lynn David Newton on 6/17/2003 11:58 as having spake thusly:
\_
\_ This may seem like a dumb question, but where do I set my SMTP server.
\_ (Using RH 8.0)
\_ 
\_ I would be very much surprised if I am the only person on this list to be
\_ affected by this problem:
\_ 
\_ This morning I just happened to notice that my mail queue was backing up.
\_ After a little looking around, I read an email message from Cox sent a
\_ couple of days ago saying that starting today they were going to "improve"
\_ service with a filter that would block all email sent to 3rd party outgoing
\_ SMTP mail servers. Huh??? My mail has always gone out, and as far as I know
\_ I have been using smtp.west.cox.net, and have no reason not to do so. (Not
\_ yet, anyhow.) But I suppose I could be wrong. I didn't have to do anything
\_ special that I remember to set it up two years ago when I started using Cox.
\_ It just all worked.
\_ 
\_ I can send mail from my iMac because I have Entourage set up to use the
\_ proper SMTP address. (I've not bothered yet to configure it to send using
\_ Xemacs VM on the Mac.) I don't know how the system knows at a lower level to
\_ send it to the right place. As far as I understand, the Mac uses sendmail to
\_ deliver mail. Whatever the case, when I send mail off the iMac, as I am
\_ about to do with this message, it goes out just fine. Meanwhile, I'm
\_ receiving incoming email just fine.
\_ 
\_ And of course, if I call Cox and complain bitterly, they'll tell me they
\_ don't support Linux.

Stuff this in /etc/mail/sendmail.mc

define(`SMART_HOST', `smtp.west.cox.com')

and run the m4 listed at the top of the file.

or try

/sbin/iptables -t nat -A OUTPUT -d !127.0.0.1 -p tcp --dport 25 \
	       -j DNAT --to-destination  smtp.west.cox.net

Although given that smtp.west.cox.net probably has multiple addresses
you probably want something with dig and xargs.  Hmm.  Appears
smtp.{west|east}.cox.net is single ip'd.  That'll stuff all outbound
port 25 connections into cox's mail server, regardless of original
intent. 

The !127.1 allows for local procmail and fetchmail to work as you
might expect.

Me, I went with a variant of the iptables rule.

YMMV.

David