What is Digg?Sponsored by HowLifeWorks
How Private Online Shopping Clubs Work view!
howlifeworks.com - How to become a member and get discounts of up to 80% on must-have luxury goods
35 Comments
- jawadde, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14warning1 : properly configure your firewall if you do this
warning2 : this will not work if your ISP forbids (and blocks) mailservers running behind DSL/cable modems.
Additionally, you could get in trouble if someone finds out you have an unfirewalled open mail gateway... It might be smart to configure postfix in such way that only mails from localhost are accepted - fcuk, on 10/21/2007, -0/+11Your e-mail will get marked as spam pretty easily by receiving e-mail clients if you use this method.
- bohrhead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I meant to say that webmail is the normal solution to these kinds of problems.
- edwilde, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5By far the best way to achieve this (on any platform) is to setup a gmail account and use their pop3 and smtp services instead. That way you will also have a remote copy of all of the mail sent and received.
oh yeah, and gmail is pretty good at filtering the spam too... - prammy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Like fcuk said, your email will very likely be marked as spam if you do this. Many mail servers including the ones I manage will mark anything coming from an smtp server on a known residential dhcp block will be marked as spam. In addition if your domain has a SPF entry specified and if that does not match the sending smtp server's ip, it might be marked as spam.
Your company _should_ provide you with some sort of remote email capability. At the very least that can provide a webmail solution which you can use. At the most they can provide a full fledged external IMAP/SSL with SMTP/TLS setup that you can use from anywhere in the world.
I am assuming that the laptop is fully secured against smtp access from other hosts or else thats another bag of problems. - Yggdrasil42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Warning #5: The recipient's SMTP server may be configured to reject mail sent from a dynamic/residential IP address.
- prammy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4That is a good idea for personal email but for business related purposes it is often better to use your company's email services.
- t3hX, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Warning #3: Posting flamebait in an Apple thread is likely to get you modded down to -infinity
Warning #4: Most ISPs block outgoing SMTP to everything but their mailservers for spam reasons.
This is a bad idea... - Bonez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I don't see why one couldn't use gmail to do this, except maybe for those that don't like Google because they are a evil corporation that don't delete anything.
Most people seem to overlook the "accounts" setting in gmail.
All you have to do there is fill in a e-mail account you own (doesn't have to be a gmail account) and verify once that you actually own that account. After that you'll be able to send e-mail as if it was coming from that (non-gmail) account from within gmail.
For added functionality you can forward all your mail from that (none-gmail) account to your gmail account ( Linux users ~/.forward) . This results in a sort of online e-mailing hub with which you receive e-mail from different e-mail addresses and from within you can also send e-mail as if it was coming from those different addresses.
Using this in combination with some clever filter settings can result in a very sleek one stop shop for all your e-mail without any spam thanks to gmails excellent spam filters
I personally do this and for people that have tons of e-mail addresses and are always on the move i recommend doing this also.
Thank you Google for making my life that much easier - t3hX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Luckily, my ISP (Internode) has a SSL mail server that can be accessed by the whole net (requiring authentication). Gets around all the blocking of outgoing SMTP quite nicely.
- ph33d, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've got to say this is just about one of the dumbest "tips" I've ever seen. Not a single word mentioned about security. Setting up a mail server with ZERO security is a great way to get pwned in a hurry.
- bjd773, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Bad idea.
- rickcarson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Warning: macs are gay"
*inhales deeply*
I love the smell of blocking retards in the morning.
*hits block button* - stukdog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://www.freemacware.com/rapidosmtp/
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Totally agree with you. This guy's solution is like hitting a finishing nail with a sledgehammer.
- rickcarson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Gmail works okay with Apple Mail as well. You have to jump through a few hoops to get there, but I actually prefer the Apple Mail interface.
I felt disappointed about having to abandon Spymac when they went ***** at 'bludgers' (what did they expect, they offered a free 1GB email account ... and then get stroppy when people actually take them up on that deal?), but gmail is a close to perfect substitute. And it is much much more reliable. Gmail has only been down a couple of days, compared to the couple of weeks (at a time) that Spymac would occassionally go awol for. - dfbills, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1While this was a great technique to use over the past several years, it will now produce highly "spammy" email that many common email hosts will not even accept. I no longer use or recommend this method.
- phill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yes, most IPS's are this way. SMTP and POP3/IMAP with SSL will allow you to email from anywhere in the world....usually. You should be using SSL for your email anyway dang it.
- FBK4SURE, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1would www.mail2web.com not solve all this configuration issues????/
- trylleklovn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Gmail
- neondiet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@neowip
"But what to do if your ISP won't even allow me to use gmail's smtp server? "
ISP's don't block access to outbound email on remote SMTP servers. If they did, Google's email would break, Apple's .Mac email service would break, and legitimate company's like AuthSMTP would go out of business. - davidswelt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The original page (not the blog linking to it) is here:
http://www.david-reitter.com/software/osxpostfix.html
I may add that this is an excellent solution for when you're on the run, but when your employer blocks outgoing SMTP traffic or when your ISP's IP address at home is blacklisted for being a dynamically assigned one, it is better to use an external SMTP server via the "submission" port 587. - neowip, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1But what to do if your ISP won't even allow me to use gmail's smtp server?
What should be a good solution if "location" also automatically changes my SMTP server. that way I could use
1. my ISP smtp at the office
2. gmail's whereever accepted
3. the local 127... when needed - nanboya, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Quite likely to happen given the number of infected spambot machines out there...
- iBookG4, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The Resnet at my school blocks SMTP from being sent and sometimes received for whatever reason. Kind of annoying...
- SeanWalberg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I think this is a great idea. The only thing I'd change is to force binding to localhost. I'm not a postfix guy, but a quick Google search says
127.0.0.1:smtp inet n - - - - smtpd
in master.cf will do the trick.
As far as running mail off a dynamic IP, yes, some providers block outbound port 25 and there is nothing you can do about it. For the blacklisting, it's not a huge deal in my experience either. Some domains like aol.com will need you to set a smart host for the domain, but I've been doing it this way for years and the number of domains I have in my exception list is small.
For the people concerned about becoming an open relay, have you actually tried to see if the default configuration is open? telnet relay-test.mail-abuse.org
FWIW, a configuration like this (bound to localhost, that is) is how Fedora has been shipping for a long time
Sean - technosailor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Wow... woke up to find my entry on the front page of Digg. Cool.
Many of the issues brought up here are legit. This was a quick solution. I am my hosting provider. I manage the servers. I could change the config of mail but it would break everyone else using it. I could also use gmail but I was not aware you could use gmail pop/smtp for non-gmail mailboxes.
I may post a followup that addresses securing your SMTP, etc. But for now, thanks for the Diggs. - collywolly, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Its OK, its a Mac. They don't get viruses. They are secure out of the box.......
- eecue, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Warning #6 : Many SMTP servers do not accept email from IPs / domain names that don't have MX records associated with them.
- belucid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If you are looking for a way to send email from your Mac's desktop email client, I reviewed another approach that works very well for me:
http://longtailend.com/index.php/2006/08/31/smtp-makes-the-koalas-cry/ - randydid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If port 25 is blocked at your location/ISP, try port 26. I have my Mail.app set to use it with my fastmail account and have never been blocked.
- filmil, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Your webmail provider would want you to think webmail is the solution. Methinks, you should not give in.
There is no reason why you would be forced to use the crappy webmail interface when you have a full-fledged email reader you use on daily basis on your machine which is in front of you.
Go stand-alone mail servers. - 44Bigs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I agree.. this just isn't smart. Take a situation where you're staying in a hotel that blocks outbound SMTP traffic. Mail.app won't complain and deliver the mails to your mail server, where it will probably stay for 5 days before it reports back to you that it can't deliver the mails.
I access an SMTP server over a ssh tunnel (which automatically connects through a cronjob), it beats SMTP+AUTH since SSH is allowed in more places. - bohrhead, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Can't say I've ever had a problem sending an email regardless of where I am. My MacBook Pro and internet access are usually adequate but failing that, I could just use my phone. I don't really see the point.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -40/+4Warning: macs are gay
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is