[lug] Email brokenness?

[David Anselmi]

Zan Lynx wrote:
[...]
> In the past couple years I have been forced to stop sending email
> directly from my home IP address and I now have my mail server relay
> everything through my ISP's mail server.

I can't do that (and wouldn't want to anyway--why should ISPs be the 
only ones with mail servers?)  But a static IP is necessary.  AOL, e.g., 
blocks dynamic addresses (that they know about).  At least AOL is really 
good about telling you what their errors mean.

The only other problems I've had sending my own mail are making sure 
that my domains resolve.  Usually just having records is enough but one 
place couldn't handle the fact that a domain had a CNAME but no A or MX 
records.  They put me on their whitelist though and I've since 
rearranged things.

In testing Comcast I found that they require <> around the address in 
MAIL FROM (nice that their 501 explained the problem).  That explains a 
problem I had testing AOL last week--but their 501 just said syntax 
error with no hints.  It appears that RFC 2821 requires this but some 
systems are more permissive.

Dave