[PLUG] email trouble - can't send to AOL, and Hotmail and Yahoo get junked

[Paul Heinlein]

On Sat, 29 Jul 2006, m0gely wrote:

> Luke Eckley wrote:
>> >  AOL flat blocks my mail.  It doesn't even get out of the queue. 
>> >  Yahoo junks it (and I think Hotmail, but I don't have an account 
>> >  to check), but gmail has no problem with it.
>>
>>  Are you sending mail directly? If so can you relay it through your
>>  ISP?
>
> Yes, directly.  But that's an incredibly simple fix to the problem. 
> I will give that a try in the morning.

I had to implement such a solution a long time ago in order to send 
e-mail to my parents. Using sendmail on Comcast, the config bits were 
pretty easy. In sendmail.mc,

   define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp:smtp.comcast.net')

Contrary to my expectations, Comcast has a fairly robust and well 
maintained SSL infrastructure on its SMTP servers. To help ensure I 
get a verified *and* encrypted outbound connection, I've twiddled 
/etc/mail/access just a bit:

   TLS_Srv:smtp.comcast.net        VERIFY:128

I get rewarded with mail log entries that confirm the connection:

   Jul 29 16:23:11 irvine sm-mta[17049]: STARTTLS=client,
   relay=smtp.comcast.net.,version=TLSv1/SSLv3, verify=OK,
   cipher=AES256-SHA, bits=256/256

256-bit AES? Not bad! At the very least, it keeps messages safe from 
the prying eyes of snoopy neighbors. :-)

-- 
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> www.madboa.com