[ale] "UPDATE" What is going on with Bellsouth's smtp server?

[Greg Freemyer]

On 3/18/06, Howard A Story <adrin at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Greg Freemyer wrote:
>
> >My company has a business dsl with a static IP from Bellsouth.
> >
> >For years we've been able to use mail.bellsouth.net as our smtp server
> >in our e-mail clients even though our return addresses are
> >xxx at NorcrossGroup.com
> >
> >As of some point yesterday Bellsouth's outbound smtp server appears to
> >be checking the return address and denying access to anybody that does
> >not have a xxx at bellsouth.net address.
> >
> >I hope I'm wrong but that is certainly the way it is behaving?
> >
> >Can anyone confirm/deny the above or provide a simple work around?
> >
> >Unfortunately my company uses Goldmine for most of our e-mail clients
> >and they don't have a lot of configurability.
> >
> >I suspect I can find anouther outbound smtp server I can use, but
> >bellsouth is getting to be more and more of a pain.
> >
> >Greg
> >--
> >Greg Freemyer
> >The Norcross Group
> >Forensics for the 21st Century
> >_______________________________________________
> >Ale mailing list
> >Ale at ale.org
> >http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> >
> >
> >
> Well,  I I can send email from the CLI and Mozilla again.  But any
> messages form root will get bounced.  Forget about trying another SMTP
> as bellsouth has those ports blocked.   Looks like you are stuck using
> their webmail client when you are away. ICK!!!  And I would assume at
> this point that if you are access a mail server through port 25 not on
> bellsouth's network.  You are not now unless you have a VPN to that
> server.   I think it has been this way for a little while now though.
>
> Looks like they have turned off some of the relaying.
>
> Adrin

Not sure of total story, but it is not as dire as you have painted it.

As of yesterday I am not using bellsouth.net for pop3/smtp servers.  I
am still using the business dsl w/static ip for transport.  I don't
have a VPN in place to anybody.

I do appear to have full smtp/pop3 connectivity from my clients to an
external web hosting company.

I have my e-mail client configured to do outbound smtp (port 25)
connections to the offsite webhosting company.  They host my companies
domain and apparently allow outbound relaying if the return address is
from my companies domain.

Bellsouth did not block these outbound port 25 connections for the few
outbound e-mails I sent from my business account yesterday and today.

For pop3 I also handle that thru my web hosting company and Bellsouth
has never blocked my pop3 requests to them.  I've been using that
setup for a year or more.  I found Bellsouth's pop3 service to be way
too unreliable to use for business.

Greg
--
Greg Freemyer
The Norcross Group
Forensics for the 21st Century