[PLUG] Solved (sort of) -- email broken

[Bill Barry]

On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 9:24 AM, frank hunt <linux at frankhunt.com> wrote:
> Well after a late night and early morning session with Comcast and my
> email system and zoneedit, I think I have hacked everything into shape.
>  In the past, I have used Comcast's SMTP server for my outbound mail -
> masquerading and site-hiding makes the mail look like it is coming from
> my domain.  That still works only now I have to use port 587 rather than
> 25.  Easy fix.  HOWEVER, Comcast in their infinite wisdom (actually all
> of the providers will be doing this) has changed their incoming mail to
> port 587 and programmed the modem to block port 25.  This presents a
> problem because my MX records are pointing at port 25.  End result of
> this is that my mail was not getting through to my local Linux mail
> server.  There were three choices: (a) somehow figure out how to
> redirect my incoming emails to port 587; (2) reluctantly stop using my
> own server (hard to give up after 15 years) and use Comcastic; (III)
> figure out how to hack the Comcast modem so it opens port 25.  I went
> with #2 because redirection is difficult and costs $$, and hacking the
> modem is probably not a good idea.  I had to generate a bunch of email
> accounts on Comcast (still not enough so I did some consolidation), then
> use zoneedit's mail forwarding service  to send  mail addressed to
> "somebody @ frankhunt.com" to  "somebody else @ comcast.net".  Then I
> changed my mail readers (Thunderbird, mostly) to point at Comcast's pop
> server instead of mine.  Holy Crap!  What a hassle.  I think it is all
> working now, finally. Time will tell.  I feel kind of naked without
> spamassassin though.
>

Maybe since you have it working you don't have the incentive to change
again, but I think  a more robust solution would be the following
setup.
1) get a free google apps account and point your MX record at the
google smtp server
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html

2) install Fetchmail to download mail from  google and pass it through
your procmail/ spamassassin

3) read mail as before

This keeps a backup of your mail at google for times when you don't
have access to your server and gets around the port 25 blocking
problem.

Bill