SmtpAuth saved my Domino server
by Volker Weber
I can keep my Domino server for the time being. Its inability to authenticate with ASMTP against my ISP almost killed it for me. I need to relay my mail through the ISP because Domino sits inside my intranet and will not reverse DNS properly to get around spam filters.
As Domino cannot do the job I needed to find a different SMTP server to do it. The easiest solution on Windows 2000 turned out to be SmtpAuth. It is not an SMTP server but a rather nice service that just opens the connection to the ISP host and then proxies out everything it receives from Domino.
Installation is a breeze and it runs as a Windows service. I needed to move its listening port from 25 to 10025 in order to be able to still have the Domino listener on 25. That was the easy part.
The hard part was convincing Domino to send the outgoing mail to localhost:25. First you go to the server document and set the outgoing port to 10025. Then you need to go to the configuration document for that server and enter localhost as the relay server. Restart Domino. Send a test mail. Fails.
What is going on?
25.02.2003 22:10:49 Router: No messages transferred to LOCALHOST (host LOCALHOST) via SMTP: Attempt made to transfer message to self via SMTP. Possible DNS configuration error.
Of course localhost is set in /etc/hosts and I have told Domino to look into the hosts file. SmtpAuth binds only to 127.0.0.1 so I had to force Domino to go for that address. Entering the address in the configuration document did not work. I finally entered an arbitrary host name and mapped that to 127.0.0.1 in /etc/hosts. Bingo.
If you don't hear any updates to that story, then I have worked it all out.
PS: My Domino server now has so many patches just to handle my mail, filter out spam and deliver via ASMTP that I wish IBM would finally deliver all those capabilities that are present in the client also to the server. I need a POP retriever and the ASMTP option. Or I might as well dump the whole setup for a Fetchmail, Cyrus, Postfix combo.
Comments
My wish list would include a graphic illustration of the current settings (visio style). Because of the hundreds of possible settings (not only for SMTP), and the numerous actual settings, logical mistakes by the administrator happen all the time.
Domino server settings can be quite confusing, all types of documents for connections, protocols, domain configs (Global, foreign...).
A visio style output of the current settings would render the dependencies of the settings and documents visible and thereby making the whole system easier to understand.
Moritz has an excellent notion there; I wonder if any third party software house has come up with such an add-in for Domino? If not, I spy a gap in the market! ;-)
A quick search lead to this link:
http://www.ecora.com/ecora/products/domino/auditor.asp
The diagrams however appear to be just an add-on without any apparent functionality to analyse correct settings.
Off the hook I don't see the value of the text based reporting tools they offer compared to the Notes Administrator, it's as if they have stopped half-way.
Hallo Volker
Ich hab ein ähnliches Problem mit meinem Domino Server.
Was für ein POP Retriever verwendest du?
Danke für die Info
Michael
I meant to update/add to the discussion for a long time, but never got around to doing so. I was having some difficulties with the above mentioned program. After switching to this one I have had a stable solution ever since.
hi Volker,
did you ever do any changes in the comfiguration of the domino server shen using the new program?
Updated link to the software.
Hi Volker,
Cheers for the info. It saved a lot of embarrassment. Here is my blog page about the solution.
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