Kool Aid Served Daily

I couldn't stand it. I like cox.net when I don't have to talk to them and wanted my email. So I extended my www.no-ip.com services to get an external mail reflector. The first step was to configure my Belkin router to map a couple of non-standard port numbers to port 25. By the way, I use the Belkin because it supports my Cisco 831 router for the Sun Ray 1G and it also allows me the ability to remap port services. I then checked that this worked.

I could have modified sendmail to listen on a different port, but then I need to remember that fact.

I then signed up for the reflector service (which will also store mail for 5 days if there is an outage) and enabled it. I tried to test and got a bounce:

[-- Attachment #1 --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 0.5K --]

The original message was received at Wed, 7 Jun 2006 13:11:51 -0700
from localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]

   ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----

    (reason: 553 sorry, that domain isn't in my list of allowed rcpthosts (#5.7.1))

   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to mail1.no-ip.com.:
>>> DATA
<<< 553 sorry, that domain isn't in my list of allowed rcpthosts (#5.7.1)
550 5.1.1 ... User unknown
<<< 503 RCPT first (#5.5.1)

[-- Attachment #2 --]
[-- Type: message/delivery-status, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 0.4K --]

Reporting-MTA: dns; virt18c.secure-wi.com
Received-From-MTA: DNS; localhost.localdomain
Arrival-Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 13:11:51 -0700

Final-Recipient: RFC822; XXX@YYY.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.1.3
Remote-MTA: DNS; mail1.no-ip.com
Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 553 sorry, that domain isn't in my list of allowed rcpthosts (#5.7.1)

I didn't sweat this too much, I figured I had a bit more to do and found this Blocked Port 25? .. Mail on a Non-Standard Port on the No-IP web site. I needed to set up some MX records. By the way, I really like how No-IP produces guides for their services.

In looking back at the prvious fragment of email, it is now clear that it was no-ip.com bouncing it and not my domain. Anyway, I followed the directions and was soon getting all of my important email - mostly test messages from various accounts I have outside the domain. Remember, it is always the principle!

I'm forced by geography to use cox.net. I use both no-ip.net and webintellects.com because I like their services. I could move my internal domain to webintellects.com, but I actually do test configurations for work and write things up based on having what looks like a full domain.