Mail Server connected to True Fixed IP

[whybother]

Has anyone here ever connected a mail server to a True fixed IP connection?

I have a mail server, using HMailServer, connected to True internet, and I have spent 4 days on the phone with True support trying to get it to work, but I am getting authentication errors.

A little bit of history:

I had the server set up and working at our previous office, with the outgoing mail server as mail.trueinternet.co.th and no authentication. I moved into the new office, and we had some issues with the connection and the router which took a few days to get fixed. During that time, there were a couple of days where the mail was sending OK (the technicians were in and out trying to fix things).

Finally, after the router and internet issues were sorted out, the emails started getting authentication errors. We contacted true, and they told us we needed to set up a truemail email address, and then use mxauth.truemail.co.th as the outgoing server and the email user and password for authentication.

We continue to get authentication errors and true are having great difficulty working out what the issue is.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what we can try?

[muratremix]

You host an email server and can't send out emails on port 25 or you have problems with true's email service?

I'm having hard time to understand which one is it.

Hosting email on ISP is tricky, usually broadband IPS are blacklisted for a reason (to reduce spam) so I wouldn't opt in this way, instead, using a vps for 5-7 bucks email server is better idea.

[whybother]

You host an email server and can't send out emails on port 25 or you have problems with true's email service?

I'm having hard time to understand which one is it.

Hosting email on ISP is tricky, usually broadband IPS are blacklisted for a reason (to reduce spam) so I wouldn't opt in this way, instead, using a vps for 5-7 bucks email server is better idea.

Actually, it's both. I host an email server and I can't send out emails on port 25 because I believe it is a problem with True's mail service. It is responding with "Authentication failed", even though I have verified with them the user and password that I should be using.

I also set up outlook to send mail directly through the true mail server, instead of through my mail server. I was able to send to other domains, but got an authentication error from True when trying to send to any addresses in the same domain (ie [email protected] to [email protected]).

I understand that blacklisting could be an issue when hosting mail, but that is not my problem.

[RichCor]

You don't have to rely on True to provide SMTP hand off. Some domain hosts also provide SMTP auth service to let you pass outgoing mail.

True may also have blocked unauthenticated/unencrypted SMTP on port 25 to prevent spammers using them as an open relay.

Usually customers need to acquire an email account on the ISP then use those credentials with Secure SMTP (SSL / TLS) – port 25, 465, 587, 2525 or 2526 to pass outgoing email from your mx server.

I set up a Google Apps account and point my mx dns back to google on an SSL port for my outgoing SMTP. Just makes things a lot easier when traveling, especially as many ISPs block/blackhole port 25 on public-facing connections.

[RichCor]

If you have an email account with your ISP, try placing the user@true/password and use SSL/TLS on port 465 or 587.

[whybother]

You don't have to rely on True to provide SMTP hand off. Some domain hosts also provide SMTP auth service to let you pass outgoing mail.

True may also have blocked unauthenticated/unencrypted SMTP on port 25 to prevent spammers using them as an open relay.

Usually customers need to acquire an email account on the ISP then use those credentials with Secure SMTP (SSL / TLS) – port 25, 465, 587, 2525 or 2526 to pass outgoing email from your mx server.

I set up a Google Apps account and point my mx dns back to google on an SSL port for my outgoing SMTP. Just makes things a lot easier when traveling, especially as many ISPs block/blackhole port 25 on public-facing connections.

I am trying to authenticate, and they have told me to use port 25, so I don't think they're blocking me.

They have told me to set up an email on their truemail, and use that with their SMTP, but they said no SSL.

I'll look into using some other SMTP for outgoing.

What I don't get is, they must have people with mail servers connected to their fixed IP addresses. But they don't seem to know anything about it.

[whybother]

If you have an email account with your ISP, try placing the user@true/password and use SSL/TLS on port 465 or 587.

Tried it. No luck. It couldn't send, and didn't specifically get an error. With port 25 (no SSL) it at least came back with an Auth error.

[RichCor]

A ThaiVisa member from 2008 suggested:

The True SMTP server is: mxauth.truemail.co.th
you have to tag 'server requires authentication' and under settings tag 'log on using' and enter your account details.
-opalhort

Or you use mail.trueinternet.co.th NO authentication is need for this one.

[Chicog]

Have you tried TelNet'ing on port 25 and entering the authentication info manually?

http://www.ndchost.com/wiki/mail/test-smtp-auth-telnet

[muratremix]

Port 25 is used for incoming emails, you should use port 587 for sending email with login/password.

[RichCor]

mxauth.truemail.co.th does require you have an email account with true. Your modem authentication credentials won't work, it needs to be an established email account.

Otherwise, easy enough to sign up with a 3rd party smtp service.

[RichCor]

Port 25 is used for incoming emails, you should use port 587 for sending email with login/password.

Port 25 is usually outgoing SMTP. Port 110 is common for POP incoming.

[whybother]

A ThaiVisa member from 2008 suggested:

The True SMTP server is: mxauth.truemail.co.th

you have to tag 'server requires authentication' and under settings tag 'log on using' and enter your account details.

-opalhort

Or you use mail.trueinternet.co.th NO authentication is need for this one.

Saw that before, and tried it ... and it failed. (Authentication required).

At my previous office (same server), it didn't need authentication. Moving to a new office meant a new internet connection ... and something has changed somewhere.

[Chicog]

Port 25 is used for incoming emails, you should use port 587 for sending email with login/password.

Port 25 is used for mails incoming to the server, yes. And you can simulate that conversation with Telnet to ensure that the authentication works.

[Chicog]

A ThaiVisa member from 2008 suggested:

The True SMTP server is: mxauth.truemail.co.th

you have to tag 'server requires authentication' and under settings tag 'log on using' and enter your account details.

-opalhort

Or you use mail.trueinternet.co.th NO authentication is need for this one.

Saw that before, and tried it ... and it failed. (Authentication required).

At my previous office (same server), it didn't need authentication. Moving to a new office meant a new internet connection ... and something has changed somewhere.

It's the most common trick ISPs use to stop their mail servers being used as mail forwarders by the spammers.

[whybother]

Have you tried TelNet'ing on port 25 and entering the authentication info manually?

http://www.ndchost.com/wiki/mail/test-smtp-auth-telnet

Authenticated OK.

[Chicog]

Have you tried TelNet'ing on port 25 and entering the authentication info manually?

http://www.ndchost.com/wiki/mail/test-smtp-auth-telnet

Authenticated OK.

Could you send a mail from the command line?

Oh and maybe turn on HMail's logging and debug logging. Perhaps it will throw up an error message that points to the problem.

http://www.hmailserver.com/documentation/latest/?page=reference_logging

Edited December 12, 2013 by Chicog

[RichCor]

Have you tried TelNet'ing on port 25 and entering the authentication info manually?

http://www.ndchost.com/wiki/mail/test-smtp-auth-telnet

Authenticated OK.

Interesting.

So it authenticates manually, but not from your on-site mailserver.

I'd recheck all the settings and options in your SMTP setup ...anything dealing with auth, protocol, security, smtp relayer, and make sure your host-name dns records resolve to your new static IP address. It could also be the Plain Text Authentication setting.

Sorry to quote the manual, it's just easier than pulling and retyping quotes:

Host name

When an SMTP server connects to another server to send a message, the first thing that happens is that the sending server identifies itself using the host name. Since there is no way to safely auto-detect the host name of a computer, you have to specify this setting manually. The host name must resolve to the IP address of the computer which is running hMailServer. Some servers will validate this and classify your email as spam if it does not resolve properly.

It does not matter what host name you enter, as long as it resolves to the IP address where hMailServer is running. You may have 15 different host names which resolves to the IP address hMailServer is running on. If this is the case, you can enter any of these 15 different host names in the Host name field.

Example: If hMailServer is running on a machine whose host name is mail.domain.com, you should specify mail.domain.com as host name. If your machine has several public host names, such as mail.domain.com and mail.domain2.com, you may specify any of them as host name.

SMTP relayer

The SMTP relayer setting lets you specify which email server email messages should be delivered to. You should never set the value to "localhost" or to the hostname of your own email server. That would cause hMailServer to try to connect to itself.

When one SMTP server delivers email to another, DNS-MX lookup is normally used. This means that if you send an email to me, at [email protected], your email server will do an MX lookup for my domain, hmailserver.com. The MX response will tell your server that it should deliver the message to mail.hmailserver.com. That communication occurs via port 25. However, it can happen that your ISP blocks outgoing traffic on the SMTP port (25) to all computers except their own email server. You can therefore not connect to mail.hmailserver.com. In that case, you should configure hMailServer to send all email through your ISP's email server. Your ISP's email server is then your relayer. The value to enter in the relayer field is the name of your ISP's email server. For example, if you happen to use the Swedish broadband provider Bredbandsbolaget, you should specify smtp.bredband.net as SMTP relayer.

If you don't want to relay all outgoing messages through a specific SMTP server, this field should be left empty.

SMTP relayer TCP port

The TCP/IP port hMailServer should connect to when delivering to the SMTP relayer.

Server requires authentication

Select this if the server you have specified as SMTP relayer requires authentication.

Use SSL

Select this option if you want hMailServer to use SSL encryption when connecting to the SMTP relay server. Note that the SMTP relay server must be configured to use SSL for this to work.

RFC compliance Allow plain text authentication

This option tells the SMTP server in hMailServer whether or not plain authentication should be allowed.

Edited December 12, 2013 by RichCor

[muratremix]

Port 25 is used for incoming emails, you should use port 587 for sending email with login/password.

Port 25 is usually outgoing SMTP. Port 110 is common for POP incoming.

You misunderstand. Port 25 is used for receiving email from others and usually enforced a dnsbl ip check. Thats why port 587 was invented to avoid this problem.

[dharmabm]

deleted because of stupidity and poor mobile app formatting

Edited December 12, 2013 by dharmabm

[whybother]

Have you tried TelNet'ing on port 25 and entering the authentication info manually?

http://www.ndchost.com/wiki/mail/test-smtp-auth-telnet

Authenticated OK.

Could you send a mail from the command line?

Oh and maybe turn on HMail's logging and debug logging. Perhaps it will throw up an error message that points to the problem.

http://www.hmailserver.com/documentation/latest/?page=reference_logging

The logging shows "535: Authentication Failed"

I'll try and work out how to send mail from the command line.

[whybother]

Have you tried TelNet'ing on port 25 and entering the authentication info manually?

http://www.ndchost.com/wiki/mail/test-smtp-auth-telnet

Authenticated OK.

Interesting.

So it authenticates manually, but not from your on-site mailserver.

I'd recheck all the settings and options in your SMTP setup ...anything dealing with auth, protocol, security, smtp relayer, and make sure your host-name dns records resolve to your new static IP address. It could also be the Plain Text Authentication setting.

Sorry to quote the manual, it's just easier than pulling and retyping quotes:

<snip>

I have tried many combinations of things in the SMTP set up. It seems to be True that is giving the authentication error based on these settings, but the True people don't have any ideas on what the issue might be.

[dharmabm]

Port 25 is used for incoming emails, you should use port 587 for sending email with login/password.

Port 25 is usually outgoing SMTP. Port 110 is common for POP incoming.

You misunderstand. Port 25 is used for receiving email from others and usually enforced a dnsbl ip check. Thats why port 587 was invented to avoid this problem.

not really an accurate statement, port 25 is used for SMTP, which is TYPICALLY used for sending and relaying mail, not receiving - receiving is normally done via POP or IMAP connections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Mail_Transfer_Protocol

[RichCor]

Port 25 is used for incoming emails, you should use port 587 for sending email with login/password.

Port 25 is usually outgoing SMTP. Port 110 is common for POP incoming.

You misunderstand. Port 25 is used for receiving email from others and usually enforced a dnsbl ip check. Thats why port 587 was invented to avoid this problem.

I finally got your meaning after a few posts. Servers relaying to Servers.

I also google searched to see if anybody wrote anything about truemail.co.th aka asianet.co.th using alternate ports ...nothing.

mxtoolbox.com reveals that PORT 25 and 587 are open, and the server wants plain text auth.

scan:mxauth.truemail.co.th

25 smtp Success

587 msa-outlook Success

smtp:mxauth.truemail.co.th

Connecting to 203.144.173.9

220 irp3auth.truemail.co.th ESMTP [1279 ms]

EHLO MXTB-PWS3.mxtoolbox.com

250-irp3auth.truemail.co.th

250-8BITMIME

250-SIZE 15000000

250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN

250 AUTH=PLAIN LOGIN [905 ms]

MAIL FROM: <[email protected]>

530 Authentication required [905 ms]

RCPT TO: <[email protected]>

530 Authentication required [905 ms]

MXTB-PWS3v2 6568ms

Edited December 12, 2013 by RichCor

[Chicog]

Well you've got me baffled. Maybe it's time to go to....

http://www.hmailserver.com/forum/

Sending mail from a command line is easy, but again rather than type it all here's the scoop.

http://www.wikihow.com/Send-Email-Using-Telnet

[muratremix]

Port 25 is used for incoming emails, you should use port 587 for sending email with login/password.

Port 25 is usually outgoing SMTP. Port 110 is common for POP incoming.

You misunderstand. Port 25 is used for receiving email from others and usually enforced a dnsbl ip check. Thats why port 587 was invented to avoid this problem.

not really an accurate statement, port 25 is used for SMTP, which is TYPICALLY used for sending and relaying mail, not receiving - receiving is normally done via POP or IMAP connections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Mail_Transfer_Protocol

Why you like to twist what I'm saying?

Incoming emails has nothing to do pop or IMAP protocols. Incoming emails is done via SMTP server on port 25. Outgoing emails is done via SMTP at port 25 or 587, 587 is recommended because it bypasses SMTP servers some spam filters by default if configured correctly.

What you understand from receiving emails is probably downloading emails from mail server, I never said anything about downloading emails did I?

I guess TV troll population is increasing rapidly.

[whybother]

It's now fixed ... yay ... after spending many hours on the phone with True and a true guy connecting through team viewer for 2 hours.

The final solution was to change the outgoing SMTP on hMailServer to port 587.

Because the router is directing traffic to the server for various ports, including port 25, hMailServer must have got itself in a knot trying to send out on port 25.

It is something that was suggested earlier, and I'm sure I tried it, but maybe I got something else wrong.

Thanks for the suggestions.