On 2007-11-14 at 17:09 -0800, Jeroen van Aart wrote:
> I used xs4all back in NL, they're good imo. Though I never tried if they
> blocked port 25 I would assume they don't, they gave a free static IP.
*cough* I used to work for Demon NL until KPN bought it and told the
NOC staff that there were no jobs for them; I didn't stay around to
migrate my job away to XS4All. But yeah, XS4All has clueful tech staff.
:-)
> > If the ISP is filtering inbound SYN, then you could use ssh with
>
> How to check this? I checked to see if port 25 is blocked by just
> running nmap and check if indeed the port was open. Trying various
> services configured to port 25 (including smtp of course). It would just
> show up as blocked. I guess using syn stealth scan on nmap would reveal
> if inbound syn is being filtered.
Forced silent proxy? telnet in to port 25 and see if you get the
service you expect to see; that includes seeing if STARTTLS is
advertised and can be negotiated.
> > port-forwarding and a session which is kept alive at all times. If you
>
> I have little experience with ssh port forwarding, how would I go about
> doing that?
You'd need root access on the box, or risk having another user hijack
your email delivery. Generally though, ssh(1) can bind a listening
socket on one side of the link, accept connections, pass the data on
through the multiplexed channel it has between source and destination
hosts and open up connections to the specified host of your choice; you
can even make it be to multiple hosts since ssh can be a SOCKS server.
In this case, getting email delivered to you via SMTP without being able
to accept port 25 inbound or having administrative control of another
machine means you pretty much need to get it as a pre-packaged service
and probably pay for what nowadays is a niche service. Probably cheaper
to just get IMAP, whether free from the company the OP was trying to use
or paid-for from someone like, eg:
http://emailthatworks.net/
If you want inbound SMTP email, then you need to be able to listen to
port 25 on some machine where it's not filtered inbound, or arrange for
a mail-service which will relay mail on a non-standard port. No getting
away from that.
-Phil
