[TriLUG] kmail cannot send mail

Jeremy Portzer jeremyp at pobox.com
Thu Sep 19 15:33:31 EDT 2002


On Thu, 19 Sep 2002, Mike Mueller wrote:

> I read through the SMTP protocol (quickly) and did not see a username and 
> password requirement.  I changed my kmail smtp server successfully to 4 
> different servers, three of which I have no known affiliation with.  Then I 
> changed the SMTP server to smtp.blah.com and got a failure message.  I have 
> not found a known working SMTP server that rejects my attempts to send email 
> yet.  All that I can see is that SMTP looks at the IP or FQDN of the 
> originator, the address of the recipient, and the address of the originator.  
> I am not an SMTP amdministrator, but I am guessing that there are controls to 
> widen or narrow the acceptable originator credentials.  In the long headers 
> of the various email tests I performed I noticed an interesting field:
> 
> Received: from user-0c8h10s.cable.mindspring.com ([24.136.132.28] helo=there)
> 
> This came from a message I sent through smtp.mail.aol.com (with whom
> I've never had an account).  My guess is that AOL lets you use its SMTP
> server as long as you tell it exactly who you are.

By the way, an SMTP server that allows anyone to send mail through it is 
known as an "open relay" and is the main reason that spam proliferates.  
It strikes me as very interesting that AOL's SMTP server allowed your 
connection... was the mail delivered properly?  I assume you weren't 
sending it to an AOL recipient?  I find it VERY hard to believe that AOL 
is running an open relay.

--Jeremy





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