Why WBS's SMTP policy screws people over:

[TheRoDent]

http://www.host4africa.com/content.php?cid=3#2

I am using a Wireless Business Solutions (WBS / iBurst) connection and can not send mail, why is this?
WBS / iBurst have decided to block all outgoing port 25 (SMTP) traffic. There is nothing we can do about this. Please follow the link for more information: » ITWeb

Just another reason why the WBS SMTP policy screwed over their userbase. The little people. The people that host with Host4Africa.com.

The very people they are selling this "service" to... Mom and pop.

 

[asmith]

Except that its rubish that Host4Africa cant do anything about it. There are several work arrounds. Ok a pain to setup, but if its got to be done to reduce spam issues its got to be done. The simplest is for the hosting box to accept email on another port as well as port 25. Then folks sending from Thunderbird/Outlook just have to change the port in their settings. A good time to setup secure smtp as well.

 

[daffy]

asmith.
Have you stopped to think _why_ everyone uses port 25 for SMTP?
Because thats the port that SMTP has been assigned by IANA. Thats the port that its supposed to be on. Thats the Standard.

Users should not be forced to deviate from standards, at all. Especially not because some braindead ISP decided that the best way to kill a fly is to nuke the entire city.

 

[guest2013-1]

with some footwork host4africa would be able to route all traffic from wbs modems to wbs's smtp server, that way eliminating the dreaded settings change.

determine if the ip range = wbs, if so, redirect request to whatever

think it's possible, just a pain in the a55 to setup no?

 

[Kei]

Well, I for one think it's bloody ridiculous:

As daffy quite correctly pointed out, the standard SMTP port is 25. Millions upon millions of pieces of software has been written to work on that port I imagine and it is a standard laid down by IANA. I think it's unacceptable that someone like WBS comes along and forces you to violate the standards by changing your e-mail port number all because they're a bunch of idiots!

 

[DFantom]

with some footwork host4africa would be able to route all traffic from wbs modems to wbs's smtp server, that way eliminating the dreaded settings change.

determine if the ip range = wbs, if so, redirect request to whatever

think it's possible, just a pain in the a55 to setup no?

This you would do on a DNS level. Bind 8 or 9 introduced a concept called views which makes this very easy. Does mean that you need to two zone files for each domain which is a management nightmare, and if they have an automatic control panel (like HSphere or Plesk) then it is even harder to do (getting the control panel to work with two files in a view mode).

Add to that is why should they be forced to carry the costs for all the overhead from all the work to do this when it is WBS what caused it?

Oh if they are using Bind 7 or before then it's an absolute bitch to do.

 

[guest2013-1]

yup, but still possible

 

[regardtv]

Actually noone's approach is a problem since requests to port 25 are silently dropped on the wbs network ...

The host4africa servers never even know that the request was made..

DFantom .. this would be impossible for host4africa to implement as the iburst user's dns queries in general go to wbs's dns servers and NOT direct to the dns servers on host4africa.Cached dns queries could point anywhere ... a MESS waiting to happen...

There is no elegant way around this.... Host4Africa could request WBS add their smtp servers onto the allowed list... but that may not happen quickly or easily ...

 

[slimothy]

There is no elegant way around this.... Host4Africa could request WBS add their smtp servers onto the allowed list... but that may not happen quickly or easily ...

oh my g0d, please stop talking out your bum, its like that magical tower detection software you had, ok let me be clear before i start, i don't want any "iburst fanboy!!" responses to this I do think its a stupid move that WBS implemented this. If you use secure smtp, that is smtp with a secure socket layer, you get around this, if you stick smtp up on an alternative port, you get around this, of course if you dont have control of the server you can't do this, but please google for alternative smtp port, you'll note alot of hosting companies etc provide an alternative for one reason or another and its not too much to ask them to open one or yours might have one already and you dont know about it.

lastly it looks like they blocked tcp traffic for port 25, NOT UDP traffic, and yes you can actually use udp to send email

 

[Crash]

"UDP to send email". I cringe at the thought.

 

[arf9999]

There is no response to a UDP packet, right? So if the packet is not delivered you will have no way of knowing. Doesn't seem to be an option for e-mail....

 

[DFantom]

DFantom .. this would be impossible for host4africa to implement as the iburst user's dns queries in general go to wbs's dns servers and NOT direct to the dns servers on host4africa.Cached dns queries could point anywhere ... a MESS waiting to happen...

Good point, but I was then thinking you would have to blanket the whole of the iBurst network (dns servers, cache servers, users etc...) into it and they should get around the problem you described, since the lookup initially would get the information. Cached DNS is a problem with views or not anyway. But there is another problem in this, that the WBS mail servers would be blanketed in this now as well and they would then have problems if someone emailed themselves or someone on the same domain (assuming the MX record is the same as the SMTP server used).

There is no elegant way around this....

exactly

 

[guest2013-1]

cancel iburst <-- elegance in your pocket...