dovecot - Mar 2005 - Bit of a Newbie Question

Apologies in advance - I'm sure there's something quite obvious I'm
not
doing correctly, but since I'm unable to resolve the problem myself....

I've installed Dovecot 99.14 on FreeBSD-CURRENT using the Dovecot
FreeBSD port.  My "network" consists of a cable modem connected to a
router which is in turn connected (only) to my computer.  My ISP assigns
a dynamic IP address.  I have ddclient set up to sync the dynamic IP to
my hostname and MX via dyndns.org.

Local operations (local delivery via Postfix or copying/moving/deleting
with Thunderbird) work fine.  Mail delivery from remote machines does
not seem to work via either IMAP or IMAP-SSL.  (That is, test e-mails I
send from this [Fastmail] account to my local IMAP server never reach
their destination.)  Enabling port forwarding on my router for ports 993
and 143 has made no difference.

What should I be doing to make this work correctly?

Jud

On Wed, 9 Mar 2005, Jud wrote:
> Apologies in advance - I'm sure there's something quite obvious
I'm not
> doing correctly, but since I'm unable to resolve the problem myself....
>
> I've installed Dovecot 99.14 on FreeBSD-CURRENT using the Dovecot
> FreeBSD port.  My "network" consists of a cable modem connected
to a
> router which is in turn connected (only) to my computer.  My ISP assigns
> a dynamic IP address.  I have ddclient set up to sync the dynamic IP to
> my hostname and MX via dyndns.org.
>
> Local operations (local delivery via Postfix or copying/moving/deleting
> with Thunderbird) work fine.  Mail delivery from remote machines does
> not seem to work via either IMAP or IMAP-SSL.  (That is, test e-mails I
> send from this [Fastmail] account to my local IMAP server never reach
> their destination.)  Enabling port forwarding on my router for ports 993
> and 143 has made no difference.
>
What do you mean with "Mail delivery via IMAP"? It is up to your MTA
and
LDA (postfix, I presume) to deliver these mails into a folder where the 
imap server can find them. This has little to do with dovecot.

Check your postfix configuration... or, your provider may be blocking 
access to port 25. Many providers do.
> What should I be doing to make this work correctly?
>
> Jud
>
>

On Thu, 10 Mar 2005, Jud wrote:
>> You have not yet told us if you actually can receive email from
outside;
>> both with respect to your MTA configuration and an open (i.e. not
>> firewalled) internet ip.
>
> I will have to investigate my MTA configuration.  It's not clear to me
> what is meant by an "open (not firewalled) internet ip."  What
> can/should I do on my system to create this condition?
>
Well, you should have an ip that is publicly accessible for mail servers 
on the internet, especially for the ones you expect will forward email.

If your provider has a firewall for its customers that disallows access to 
certain ports (such as 25 and 80), you simply can not receive email (by 
SMTP).

Perhaps FastMail will allow you to specify a specific port, but I doubt it.

IMO, it's not a good idea to run a mailserver on a residential line with a 
dynamic ip; likely the contract with your isp even forbids this. Ofcourse, 
it's up to you to decide and try anyway.
>> There is no difference for dovecot. For now, I'd say rather that
the
>> problem is either that your MTA doesn't accept email, or that your
isp
>> firewalls port 25 (which is rather likely on a dynamic ip home
>> connection).
>
> It is probably true that my isp blocks port 25; it will be easy to
> determine for sure.  If so, are there any solutions you can suggest?
>
Do you have any accounts on remote servers? Just do a

   'telnet your_internet_ip 25'

... or something along those lines.

If not, try an online open relay testing service such as the one ordb 
provides:

   http://www.ordb.org/submit/

Be sure to enable test feedback.

It will probably tell you enough for you to find out if it can reach your 
server or not.
>> Read the MTA logs. See if there is any connection at all. If there is,
>> check what happens with the messages (refused?). If there is not, you
>> either are not accepting connections on your outside interface, or your
>> provider has blocked access to port 25.
>>
>> Did you receive any bounces?
>
> Yes, though I deleted them, not even thinking to read them for
> information.  However, it is quite simple for me to create more bounces!
> ;-)
>
Do so, and read the actual error message.

This has very little to do with dovecot...