sendmail question (Chris Hare)

[Frank DiPrete]

This might not be the right forum, so I apologize up front.
 
I have a situation where my ISP requires outbound SMTP to be
authenticated,
such as in a mail client.  I have an application I have built that sends
email to users when there is a severe weather event.  Some of those
users
are at my ISP.  (If they are not, it isn't an issue.)  Is there anyway
to
configure sendmail to do outbound authenticated SMTP to another mail
server?

 
This issue is also important, because this ISP (comcast) only provides a
java/macromedia web mail client, which my PDA can't access.  I have
squirrelmail running now, which it can, but since I need authenticated
outbound SMTP, I can't send email. Not very useful.
 
Thanks
Chris


Hello Chris,

I too have a comcast account and can speak to this. The problem is not
so much an smtp client problem but a sendmail / comcast issue.

Comcast's smtp server will reject any direct connection from your
sendmail daemon. I have played around with it and watched the logs
closely. Presumably this is to prevent spam relay's - although tons of
spam flies through their filters on a dialy basis which is another
story ;)

You have a few options.

1) use sendmail with a valid domain /sendmail server hosted externally
setup to allow relay from your box - probably not practical for what you
are doing.

2) do not use sendmail and use ssmtp - it replaces sendmail and accepts
the sendmail command and options. This will work at getting the mail off
your box to smtp.comacast.net. I have used it in the past. The mail will
come "from" the address specified in it's configuration file. This is a
trade off.

3) re-write your app to not use your local mailer but cat a message
using smtp's syntax. see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMTP#Example_SMTP_communication


I used option 2 with success - behind a firewall.