On 2020-02-04 9:51 p.m., Adam Thompson wrote:

On 2020-02-04 21:04, Gerald Brandt wrote:

Of course I've tried to get new IPs. I've had nothing but resistance. I've made another attempt today, so now I wait for a response.


Unfortunately, Hartmut is right in this regard.  Trying will not solve your problem, only succeeding will.  Until you succeed at that, I strongly recommend you route all outbound mail through a proxy or relay server, because otherwise you will be wasting your time.

Which I am doing, over port 26 to my SMTP server in Montreal.

The only option I know of is to reach Shaw's retention team; just like cell carriers, the retention team is the only group actually empowered to fix things for you.  In this case, I suggest you *ahem* relent if they send a business tech out to your site, who demonstrates before leaving that you have a static IP, DHCP is disabled, reverse DNS is set (correctly), and you can once again send email.

I have no problem having a tech in here. When they lost my multihome config, I had a tech on-site for 4.5 hours before it was resolved. Reverse DNS is correct, DHCP is disabled... Shaw sees me pulling my "static" IPs.

MTS also has business service, and if sending email is your main use case, their business DSL service is probably good enough.  So you call Shaw, tell them you're switching to MTS because Shaw has consistently failed to address your problem.  And if they say "OK, have fun with MTS", switch.  You literally can't get any worse off than you are right now.

And if you have the same problem with MTS (which you almost can't because YOU aren't in control of your IP address, they are, ergo you can't really get it wrong) then... um... there's only one common element remaining...

SMTP email pretty much requires a specialist nowadays.  If you haven't devoted, eh, let's say 10yrs (cumulatively, assuming standard working hours) of your life to managing and running public SMTP servers, I'd estimate >50% odds that the problem somehow, somewhere, lies on your end.  Maybe the proximate problem is Shaw, but I've never had problems like you're describing with getting their business service to do the right thing.

I've been running public facing SMTP servers for 15 years, at least, using sendmail and now postfix. I'm no expert, but I'm not a newbie. The only change on my end was moving from VOI to Shaw. The fact that I can't telnet to any outside SMTP server removes any mistakes I may have made on my end anyway, since it doesn't involve the SMTP server.


If you continue to have problems, there's a small chance I might be able get your complaint routed to someone capable within Shaw; email me directly if you want to try that before threatening to leave them.

Thank you for the offer! I may have to take you up on that.

Also, maybe tell us what the router is, and what the SMTP server is - I don't think we know those details yet.  Although ESR is a walking dumpster fire, this article of his remains relevant (albeit tone-deaf) today: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

I'm running postfix as the SMTP... it's part of my Univention Active Directory Server. This email server has been running for two years, with no changes. I run OPNSense as my firewall/router.

-Adam


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