Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000 00:28:51 -0700 From: "Craig Critchley" <cac@fuzzer.com> To: "Mike Meyer" <mwm@mired.org>, <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: <cwaiken@telerama.com> Subject: Re: AOL's mail policy (Was: Sendmail / mutt errors) Message-ID: <067c01c017d4$1b400560$0201010a@craigc> References: <14773.59796.326575.505048@guru.mired.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
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 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?067c01c017d4$1b400560$0201010a>