[Sussex] A cheeky request...

[Karl E. Jorgensen]

On Fri, Mar 12, 2004 at 01:09:38PM +0000, Matthew Macdonald-Wallace wrote:
> All,
> 
> The system here is locked down tighter than a camel's arse in a sandstorm and 
> as a result I can't send email from my local machine (using webmail to send 
> this one!) I've asked the sysadmins about a SMTP relay, but they say the don't 
> have one, so what I'm wondering is this:

In which way is it locked down?  Even the most locked-down places seem
to allow https - which can be (ab)used for ssh connections with port
tunneling...

> fo £15 a year, I can purchase an SMTP server for my domain hosted with 
> 34sp.com, however I can't guarantee this will work, so I was wondering if 
> someone on the list would be kind enough to provide me with an outside SMTP 
> server that I can test sending mail and see if it is port 25 that's blocked or 
> not before buying the SMTP function from 34sp.

Telnetting to any known smtp server on the outside should suffice to
find out whether the port is blocked - the initial response from the
smtp server should be sufficient to prove that you're talking to it:

    $ telnet smtp.${SOME_ISP}.com 25

should respond with something along the lines of:
220 einstein ESMTP Exim 4.30 Sat, 13 Mar 2004 14:05:02 +0000

(anything starting with 220 is OK)

PS: most ISPs seems to run smtp servers too, with pop-before-smtp
    authentification. So if you sign up for a pay-as-you-go account with
    somebody, you *should* be able to use their SMTP server. (incoming
    mail is a different issue...)

HTH

-- 
Karl E. Jørgensen
karl at jorgensen.com   http://karl.jorgensen.com
Your eyes are weary from staring at the screen...  You feel sleepy...  Notice
how restful it is to watch the cursor blink...  Close your eyes (but keep
reading)...  The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you
ever felt otherwise.
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