[lug] "Simple" mail MTA setup?

[Phil Rasch]

Thanks to those of you that have responded.

I must admit that I hit these problems six months ago or more. I
worked out my "fix" and moved on. But obviously I want to do better,
which is why I posted.

Since that time my webhost has changed their mailserver. And I dont know what
comcast has done to deal with the blacklists. They sent these nice emails 
back when contacted saying "we are working on it". Maybe they did something.

The upshot is that I dont have the old emails, and I dont have a configuration
set up to test it right now (I was readying myself to try again, which is why
I sent out the post). So I will have to put in a bit of time setting up and
investigating before posting more if I still have the problem.

Can I just ask one more thing?

I really would like it if I could set up a powerful MTA like postfix or exim
or something with 5 minutes of work. But it never seems to work out that way.

I usually fuss around for 30 minutes to a couple of hours. Am I just slow on
this stuff, or is it truely a hassle?

I never have any trouble with the simple tools I mentioned before
(either msmtp, esmtp, kmail, thunderbird, etc), but I have never found
a simple set of instructions (like 10 bullets or so) that help me
through it for the powerful ones. It usually requires mucking about in
3 or 4 files, and choosing a few of many options, and running seperate
passwd encrypting codes, etc.

Anybody want to point me to a simple tutorial? Remember, I want to use
SSL or TLS, and need to send a username and password for verification to 
the smarthost.

Thanks a bunch

Phil

On Fri, Jan 05, 2007 at 10:22:30PM -0700, David L. Anselmi wrote:
> Phil Rasch wrote:
> [...]
> >5) DOES NOT INDICATE THE IP NUMBER THAT THE MAIL ORIGINATES FROM IN
> >   THE HEADER BUT IDENTIFIES IT AS ORIGINATING FROM THE SMARTHOST.
> [...]
> >I need item 5 because a number of groups that I mail to use blacklists,
> >and my broadband provider for my house is comcast. My mail is
> >occasionally trashed because of my mail originating from a
> >number in the comcast ip block.
> 
> Really?!  The appropriate way to send mail from a dynamic IP like the 
> one Comcast gives you is to relay through their smart host.  That only 
> works if the blacklists block the sending MTA, not any IP in the 
> received headers.
> 
> Can you say more (perhaps provide a bounce) that shows that behavior?  I 
> would think that it's a bad practice and it would be interesting to know 
> who is doing it and why.
> 
> Dave