Home Linux Server - Gmail help -- how to forward through gmail if using postfix

[revsie]

Hi

Now I know this all seems to be a little long in the tooth with the gmail thing.

I have a home server and it runs Ubuntu Linux 6.06.
I have installed zencart in my webspace and I am really excited about this program but my git of an ISP has blocked port 25 for spam reasons.

I have been reading all the gmail posts and tried most things inc. usins sendmail, smtp, smtpauth. I have tried ports 587 and 465.

Nothing seems to work. My gmail accout is a hosted account.

It ask's for the starttls stuff that I have read zencart is unable to do at present but is there a way to run a mail server on my home server and relay it on to gmail using the starttls function?

Also is there a way to alter the sendmail config to do this?

Thanks for your help in advance.

Revsie

[Chuckl]

The short answer is yes, you can install a mail server on an Ubuntu 6.06 home server. However, your post covers an awful lot of ground, so it is possibily not true to say that it will solve your problem. If your ISP is blocking port 25 your mail server might find it difficult to talk to any other mail servers.
This can be solved if your domain registrar has default mail servers for your domain, by using port 587 or similar to transfer mail between your server and the domain servers.
regarding Gmail, it sounds to me as if you are trying to get Gmail to relay mail on behalf of your domain, which is probably not going to impress Gmail very much. This may well not be the case with a Google Apps setup, but there are DNS MX record considerations at your domain reg. If I remember correctly, Gmail uses ports 465 and 995, not 587.
Regarding a local mail server on your Ubuntu machine, a potential advantage is that it would enable your Zencart to use PHP for the mail transport, simplifying your local config. I'd suggest Postfix rather than sendmail, as sendmail is not for the faint hearted. howtoforge.com have a perfect ubuntu 6.06 setup that might be useful.

[revsie]

Thanks for the advice Chuckl. I will try postfix but must admit I have not had much luck in the past.

My server used to have windows running it but I decided to change to Linux for the experience and also the safer more secure OS that it is.

I have been reading a lot on the How to Forge website which is where I got the info for setting my linux server up in the first place.

I will give it a go but if you find a good step by step guide for a linux newbie on how to set this up please let me know.

Thanks again Chuckl.

[Chuckl]

For the first Ubuntu server I set up to evaluate it, I simply followed the howtoforge perfect setup in toto, using IspConfig etc, and added Webmin as an alternate/additional admin frontend. That gets you a fairly solid and secure base.
That said, if you get any funnies or error messages during that process, investigate and fix.
You could also install VmWare and download the IspConfig appliance and install it, which gives a similar result, but a bit of computer horsepower is needed, and some knowledge of German is desirable to do the basic config. The default keyboard layout is German, for starters.

On the mail server side, it is absolutely crucial to get the DNS MX records correct, and not just on your DNS server if you are running one.e.g. My domain registrars' mail servers will accept mail for my domains by defult, and the MX records define them as the definitive servers for that domain, typically set at a priority of 10 or 20 or so.
The admin panel allows me to define email addresses for the domain, mail forwarding, catchall forwarding etc. Some of those settings have very unexpected results however, and can kill all mail for the domain.
Once I had my mail server set up, it was necessary to add DNS name records there for the mail server, and an MX record for the mail server with a lower (numeric) priority than their servers. That way, their mail servers would still accept mail for the domain, but forward it to my server.
Home router also had to be set with static IP and DMZ type forwarding to the server machine.

Hope that helps a bit, and have fun.

[revsie]

Ok. I have followed the tutorials on How To Forge website and everything seems to be working properly but I get this error. Warning it's a long one.

------------------- SMTP -> get_lines(): $data was "" SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "220 mail.gameitus.com ESMTP Postfix (Ubuntu) " SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "220 mail.gameitus.com ESMTP Postfix (Ubuntu) " SMTP -> FROM SERVER: 220 mail.gameitus.com ESMTP Postfix (Ubuntu) ------------------- SMTP -> get_lines(): $data was "" SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250-mail.gameitus.com " SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "250-mail.gameitus.com " ------------------- SMTP -> get_lines(): $data was "250-mail.gameitus.com " SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250-PIPELINING " SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "250-mail.gameitus.com 250-PIPELINING " ------------------- SMTP -> get_lines(): $data was "250-mail.gameitus.com 250-PIPELINING " SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250-SIZE 10240000 " SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "250-mail.gameitus.com 250-PIPELINING 250-SIZE 10240000 " ------------------- SMTP -> get_lines(): $data was "250-mail.gameitus.com 250-PIPELINING 250-SIZE 10240000 " SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250-VRFY " SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "250-mail.gameitus.com 250-PIPELINING 250-SIZE 10240000 250-VRFY " ------------------- SMTP -> get_lines(): $data was "250-mail.gameitus.com 250-PIPELINING 250-SIZE 10240000 250-VRFY " SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250-ETRN " SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "250-mail.gameitus.com 250-PIPELINING 250-SIZE 10240000 250-VRFY 250-ETRN " ------------------- SMTP -> get_lines(): $data was "250-mail.gameitus.com 250-PIPELINING 250-SIZE 10240000 250-VRFY 250-ETRN " SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250-STARTTLS " SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "250-mail.gameitus.com 250-PIPELINING 250-SIZE 10240000 250-VRFY 250-ETRN 250-STARTTLS " ------------------- SMTP -> get_lines(): $data was "250-mail.gameitus.com 250-PIPELINING 250-SIZE 10240000 250-VRFY 250-ETRN 250-STARTTLS " SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN " SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "250-mail.gameitus.com 250-PIPELINING 250-SIZE 10240000 250-VRFY 250-ETRN 250-STARTTLS 250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN " ------------------- SMTP -> get_lines(): $data was "250-mail.gameitus.com 250-PIPELINING 250-SIZE 10240000 250-VRFY 250-ETRN 250-STARTTLS 250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN " SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250-AUTH=PLAIN LOGIN " SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "250-mail.gameitus.com 250-PIPELINING 250-SIZE 10240000 250-VRFY 250-ETRN 250-STARTTLS 250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN 250-AUTH=PLAIN LOGIN " ------------------- SMTP -> get_lines(): $data was "250-mail.gameitus.com 250-PIPELINING 250-SIZE 10240000 250-VRFY 250-ETRN 250-STARTTLS 250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN 250-AUTH=PLAIN LOGIN " SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250 8BITMIME " SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "250-mail.gameitus.com 250-PIPELINING 250-SIZE 10240000 250-VRFY 250-ETRN 250-STARTTLS 250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN 250-AUTH=PLAIN LOGIN 250 8BITMIME " SMTP -> FROM SERVER: 250-mail.gameitus.com 250-PIPELINING 250-SIZE 10240000 250-VRFY 250-ETRN 250-STARTTLS 250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN 250-AUTH=PLAIN LOGIN 250 8BITMIME ------------------- SMTP -> get_lines(): $data was "" SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250 Ok " SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "250 Ok " SMTP -> FROM SERVER: 250 Ok ------------------- SMTP -> get_lines(): $data was "" SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "554 : Recipient address rejected: Relay access denied " SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "554 : Recipient address rejected: Relay access denied " SMTP -> FROM SERVER: 554 : Recipient address rejected: Relay access denied SMTP -> ERROR: RCPT not accepted from server: 554 : Recipient address rejected: Relay access denied ------------------- SMTP -> get_lines(): $data was "" SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250 Ok " SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "250 Ok " SMTP -> FROM SERVER: 250 Ok

Email Error: SMTP Error: The following recipients failed: [email protected]

Now I am not exactly sure what it all means but the Relay access denied seems pretty obvious. Now what exactly do you think I could do about that?

I know that with Mozilla Thunderbird I am able to send messages through but it's not working with postfix for some reason.

Any Ideas?

[Chuckl]

Whoa do you have logging cranked up 11 or so!! If the mail server and website are on the same server, change the mail transport to PHP and try that. i.e. the mail server should theoretically accept mail from a domain website on 'itself'. There is no point in using SMTP to talk from a website to a mail server on the same machine.
There are a couple of setup issues that could put a spoke in however.
In order for the outside world to be happy with the mailserver, you would need to add a couple of records to the definitive/authoritative name server for your domain - usually at your domain registrar. First a name record for mail.gameitus.com pointing to the IP address you are using for the server. This should be an IP that is visible to the internet - e.g. the external IP of your router, not a non routable Ip address of the machine - e.g. 192.168.0.xxx.
Secondly, a DNS MX record for mail.gameitus.com with a priority that is numerically lower than any other gameitus.com mail server priorities. This flags your server as the chief honcho mail server for the domain.

[revsie]

Ok.

So this means that when I am sending an e-mail to smtp.google.com my mail server connects and then the google server tries to check for a MX record to see if this is a real server? Is that how it goes?

I have not set any MX names up for my mail server yet so google can't check my server is a real server?

Do you have any idea how to set this up? All my MX records point towards googles mail server. should I change this to my own? If so how do I go about finding out or creating my own MX records for my mail server?

This all gets very confusing.

Thanks for all your help Chuckl. I owe you one.

[revsie]

Also if it's any help. I use Zone Edit for my name servers. My registrar is 123reg.com. They both have places in which you can enter MX records but not entirely sure which one I should be using so have added google's MX records to both.

Also my website as you have prob realized is www.gameitus.com
My Zencart is at www.gameitus.com/zencart

[Chuckl]

I realised after I posted the last one that I hadn't really stressed the fact that I felt it was important to establish whether your Zen Cart shop could now talk to the local mail server. That would be a very good step 1, as if not, ther's some more config to do on your Ubuntu setup.
i.e. Set mail transport to PHP, send an email from admin, and then check the mail log to see whether it is accepted by Postfix.
Once that is accomplished, we know you have a working shop, and several ways to get the mail out to the world.
And yes, in this day and age mail servers can get very picky about the connections they do and do not receive and accept. Thats why I am so keen to get the mail as far as the Postfix server.

[revsie]

Right.

I am sorry if I seem to be a pain in the *** newbie but I am not sure where to find the mail log.

Also when I set the email delivery setting to PHP it seems to send it via sendmail. Now do I have to change something within the php.ini file to get this to postfix?

Again I apologize for my lack of knowledge.