Telecom retiring SMTP server end of September 2014

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Telecom retiring SMTP server end of September 2014

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BlakJak

1275 posts

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#1095634 25-Jul-2014 14:26

Dynamic:
BlakJak: 1) Use DNS and direct-to-MX delivery.

Required outbound Port 25 access
Introduced potentially problematic delivery due to the issue flagged above around IP address reputation - coming from a broadband customer pool is going to see people judge you as such (general rule is that residential-grade IP addresses shouldn't be doing SMTP - and sorry if you run a business on ADSL, but that's what it is...
We have had good results with DNS and direct to MX delivery (providing PTR records are set up) . Occasionally we have had an ISP-assigned Static IP addresses that are in a range configured as dynamic/dialup and have had to be on at the ISP multiple times for this to be sorted.

To be clear it's not simply the existence of a PTR record, it's a matching PTR-and-A (or 'forward-and-reverse') combination.
But these are only part of the picture.

For many years mail service operators have immediately 'marked down' email coming from netblocks known to host end-users, in large part because such a substantial amount of spam comes from compromised machines on the back of end-user netblocks.

It's not black and white; you may well have had lots of success but I would not want to assume this will continue. On the other hand should you experience problems there's also a chancel you can negotiate with the remote party about how they treat your IP. There's also a chance they'll be a large player who won't care, or an RBL operator (SORBS come to mind) who also, won't care.

In general ISP mail servers are safer - so long as your ISP has a good rep for dealing with compromised machines when they come up, to preserve the rep of _their_ IP addresses - than doing direct SMTP delivery from an IP in an xDSL netblock. However you may be lucky enough to not be in a netblock so-categorised or not correspond with people who use those sorts of services.

No signature to see here, move along...

Jarsky

142 posts

Master Geek

#1096348 26-Jul-2014 21:23

Paul1977:
How do you have this free?

It's only free to the early adopters who registered their domain for Google Mail before it became the Google Business Apps suite of products.

Those who already had domains registered, could continue to use it free for life, but there are limitations to it, which is fine for most small users, but if you're a larger company using it, then you'd want to upgrade it to the pay service.

Naithin

41 posts

Geek

#1097205 28-Jul-2014 16:11

Peppery:
Had a client the other day trying to set up @ihug email on a Telecom connection. Vodafone SMTP servers, despite their website, don't appear to be listening on port 995, only port 25, which Telecom blocks. Wasn't too sure what to do with that one.

Have had to work through this one before for my parents, Telecom does allow for Port 25 to be unblocked at request. You can also just verify the addresses via their @xtra account and then use send.xtra.co.nz, but if you have more than a couple of addresses like they did that can become quite tedious.

If you want to look at the unblock port 25 angle can do so from www.telecom.co.nz/port25

Technofreak

6530 posts

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#1097838 29-Jul-2014 12:49

I got the email from Telecom this morning telling me to change my settings from SMTP to send.

All you need to do is change your outgoing mail settings from SMTP.xtra.co.nz to send.xtra.co.nz.

If you need some help finding these settings, just go to telecom.co.nz/smtp to find simple steps for the email programme you use on your computer, smartphone or tablet.

Unfortunately even the though the instructions say all you need to do is that change from "STMP" to "send" that change on it's own doesn't work so I clicked on the link in their email and that is broken.

Not a good way to get customers changed over.

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mobiusnz

457 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1097874 29-Jul-2014 13:16

IMHO this is a cop out from Telecom - Yes its getting very hard for an ISP to maintain a traditional smtp relay server as all it takes is one clown with a poorly configured mail server or a virus to send lots of unsolicited mail out and get the relay server on a blocklist but just shutting the service down is weak. I cringe every time I have a client on Telecom with their own exchange server as even when you can use smtp.xtra.co.nz as a relay delivery is far from reliable - My Solution is for a business running their own exchange server not to use Telecom as an ISP. I still am tending more and more to setup reverse PTR's and SPF records and have clients running direct MX delivery. If I find a recipient who flat our refuses to accept mail I'll set that recipient domain to route via a smart host but with Telecom this option is out.

Snap run a reliable smart host - Its had its days of delayed delivery but in general is reliable and part of that is they scan outbound mail for spam too - I once on my own server made it open relay (Long story but basically due to relocating the server to a second site but still having a port forward on the old sites router that redirected through an IPSEC vpn and was nat'd to make it look like the source IP was my second sites trusted subnet) and none of the mail made it to end recipients, Snap gave me a bell to inform me that they were trapping all of the emails but I might want to take a look at my config. Always the way, like a builders house, mechanics car - I rushed to shift my server due to an outage and wasn't thorough enough.

Basically I think Telecom are positioning themselves as a consumer ISP only. Maybe they need two tiers, offer a relay server with business client connections only - Use auth on it to help with security but once the auth is made you an send from any address on your registered permitted domains??

Had a look at smtp2go and that looks ok - Going to give it a trial with my server and see how the reputation looks to the likes of Hotmail / Yahoo etc.

Matt Beechey Mobius Network Solutions

Technofreak

6530 posts

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#1097877 29-Jul-2014 13:22

I went to the Telecom site and opened the link for the the email changes. I'd done everything correctly the first time and their instructions still don't work. I'm not looking forward to ringing the help line.

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MurrayM

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#1097887 29-Jul-2014 13:51

Technofreak: I got the email from Telecom this morning telling me to change my settings from SMTP to send.

All you need to do is change your outgoing mail settings from SMTP.xtra.co.nz to send.xtra.co.nz.

If you need some help finding these settings, just go to telecom.co.nz/smtp to find simple steps for the email programme you use on your computer, smartphone or tablet.

Unfortunately even the though the instructions say all you need to do is that change from "STMP" to "send" that change on it's own doesn't work so I clicked on the link in their email and that is broken.

Not a good way to get customers changed over.

For me the http://telecom.co.nz/smtp link redirects to http://www.telecom.co.nz/help/internet/smtpupdate.html and that page has more info.

Yes, it's a bit more than just changing smtp.xtra.co.nz to send.xtra.co.nz, you also have to turn on authentication and check port numbers.

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Technofreak

6530 posts

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#1097928 29-Jul-2014 15:06

MurrayM:
For me the http://telecom.co.nz/smtp link redirects to http://www.telecom.co.nz/help/internet/smtpupdate.html and that page has more info.

Yes, it's a bit more than just changing smtp.xtra.co.nz to send.xtra.co.nz, you also have to turn on authentication and check port numbers.

Speaking of port numbers, I had to change port numbers some time back to allow me to access my emails from overseas and when away from home using an ISP other than Xtra. If I have to change port numbers again will I end up with problems when not accessing my emails thru Xtra as the ISP?

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Foiler

220 posts

Master Geek

#1099203 31-Jul-2014 12:02

What is the story with send.xtra.co.nz compared with smtp.officemail.co.nz ??

Does one of these (or both?) support sending mail from a non-Xtra connection?

And is the officemail one REQUIRED for "domain" email users?

I have to say it's all a bit of a fog out there and quite hard to support.

iainf

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1099424 31-Jul-2014 15:59

send.officemail.co.nz is for customers who use telecom for their domain email eg bob@abc.co.nz
send.xtra.co.nz is for customers who use xxx@xtra.co.nz

granada29

57 posts

Master Geek

#1099501 31-Jul-2014 17:54

I decided that for the low cost (about $1 / week) the simplest thing to do was sign up with smtp2go. That was a 2 weeks ago and no problems so far. Required a simple configuration change on my mail server and some DNS tweaks to update my SPF records. The smtp2go installation is very well documented for a wide range of MTA and OS configurations

The Telecom suggested option of using their 'send' server is totally unrealistic since its actually a yahoo server with many restrictions/limitations on sender addresses.

iainf

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1099708 31-Jul-2014 21:55

I have been using smx for several years, stable and good support.
office 365 have good support as well, and they provide support for port 25 using ip address authentication.

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