From owner-freebsd-questions  Wed Sep  6  0:15:59 2000
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From: "Craig Critchley" <cac@fuzzer.com>
To: "Mike Meyer" <mwm@mired.org>, <questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Cc: <cwaiken@telerama.com>
References: <14773.59796.326575.505048@guru.mired.org>
Subject: Re: AOL's mail policy (Was: Sendmail / mutt errors)
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000 00:28:51 -0700
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From: "Mike Meyer" <mwm@mired.org>


> Dan Nelson writes:
> > In the last episode (Sep 05), Alan Clegg said:
> > > Unless the network is lying to me again, Christopher W. Aiken said:
> > > > How can I set up "sendmail" or "mutt" to avoid the following errors
> > > > that I'm getting with FreeBSD 4.1?  I changed the email address to
> > > > "protect the innocent".  :)
> > >
> > > > -|<<< 550-AOL no longer accepts connections from dynamically
assigned
> > > > -|<<< 550-IP addresses to our relay servers.  Please contact your
ISP
> > > > -|<<< 550 to have your mail redirected through your ISP's SMTP
servers.
> > > Send mail via YOUR provider (not directly) by setting the SMTP relay
in
> > > your sendmail.cf.
> > The AOL message is very badly worded; there's nothing your ISP can do
> > about it, although you might need to ask them what IP you should
> > forward mail to, if you don't already know.  For information on telling
> > sendmail (and other MTAs) about parent mail servers, see
> > http://www.mail-abuse.org/dul/gateways.htm .
>
> Gag. Retch. No - wait!
>
> Why were you trying to talk to an AOL relay server? Do they route mail
> to their users through relay servers, so that people who send mail
> direct (personally, I do it because I use no fewer than five different
> ISPs, and don't want to reconfigure my mail software to dial in behind
> a different firewall) are *all* going to have to reconfigure their
> mail servers?
>
> Bleah,
> <mike

Rejecting incoming mail from dialups (and/or DHCP-assigned addresses) has
been debated at grotesque length on news.admin.net-abuse.email.  While there
are (as in your case) legitimate reasons to do it, the unpleasant fact is
that the vast majority of mail sent directly from a dialup to the
recipient's server (as opposed to relaying through the dialup provider) is
spam.  After all, almost all end-user mail software uses a fixed SMTP relay
to do the actual work.  Blocking dialups is therefore easy, effective, and
relatively free of downsides (to the ISP).

More and more domains are blocking dialups for incoming mail for this
reason.  Until spam goes away this'll only get worse.

The least unpleasant solution, if you have to do a lot of ISP-roaming, is
probably to see if one of your numerous ISP's has a mail server that will do
SMTP AUTH-based relay, and relay your mail through that one.

                ...Craig




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