RE: fix.your.open.relay.or.die.net

[James Rich <james@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Let's lay this thing to bed.  You *can* deny open relaying *and* allow
your remote users to send you email from anywhere *and* read their email
from anywhere.  I wanted to be sure I had things right before posting.

Open relays are not necessary for proper SMTP function.  You don't need
non-standard firewalls or non-standard software.  While the details of my
configuration are off topic for this list (since I don't use OS/400 for
anything mail-related), a general outline will help so that we can
discover if the same will work on OS/400.

For me, "standard" is:

server: sendmail-8.11 (running on whatever, linux in this case)
client: mozilla-0.9.6 (or any other netscape mail client)

I tested my email server through two different relaying testers to be sure
that open relaying was disabled.  I configured mozilla with my name, etc.
and put my server in the outgoing SMTP box.  I then connected from home
using whatever ip address my ISP gave me.  My email server has no special
rules regarding ip addresses or forwarding.  I sent an email message from
home to somewhere not in the domain of my email server.  It was sent just
fine.

So open relays are not needed and are rightfully frowned upon.  I don't
know how to do any of the above on OS/400 but it ought to work.

James Rich
james@eaerich.com