[Gllug] FQDN for local mail relay?

[Mike Brodbelt]

Garry Heaton wrote:
> 
> The mail clients send mail from <name>@robinsonengineers.co.uk but the
> server's hostname is simply 'robinson.local' however we arranged with BT
> for
> them to whitelist our domain since it's hosted with BT. It's just that
> we're
> not using the domain on our mailserver since it's not public.
> 
> Sending the mail out directly is worse for us than relaying because certain
> ISPs, AOL for example, won't recognise the mailserver if it doesn't have a
> public domain name. That's why we opted for relaying.

The problem here is that despite your mail being tehnically OK, spam is
now so problematic that there are a lot of people who'll reject mail
with dubious domains in "From" headers.

IMHO, the best option these days is to have a machine with a public IP
and correct forward and reverse DNS. Send mail direct, and then make
sure your machine announces the correct DNS name in the HELO/EHLO stage
of the SMTP/ESMTP transaction.

Failing that, if you have to relay, make sure your MTA rewrites the
"From" header and the envelope sender address to a genuine, deliverable
email address at your domain. That should also work. Do a packet trace
when you're sending an outbound email so you can see the entire SMTP
conversation - that way it'll be obvious if something isn't being
rewritten properly.

Mike

-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug