getting past an ISP when i"m away from the office

sfullman

Hi There,

This is really not a PHP related post 🙂 but I'm here all the time so it's a good place to ask

when I'm at home I can send and receive email in thunderbird. But, because 99% of all other ISP's will not allow relaying (understandable), when I'm away I can only receive mail.

and, I really hate my web-based mail service b/c its in a different place and it's not thunderbird. 🙂

so, is there any program or add-on that can allow me to get past the outsider ISP? perhaps sending the email by similar protocol as file upload. Just a thought - not sure even how you'd term this for a search. Anyone who designs this add-on or software has my praise. Thanks for your input!

Samuel

bpat1434

I'm not sure I understand your problem.

If you have thunderbird set up to receive mail from mail.isp.com, and you're sending through smtp.isp.com, then what's the problem?

I've never had a problem with this.

Another option is to forward all your mail to a gmail account and use gmail instead of your isp.

sfullman

I am at home. Incoming and outgoing mail server are the same ISP. (verizon)

Now, I go on the road, connecting through ISP "X" with my family in Chicago, or an airport in Seattle, etc. - I send an email out, and the response is "Relaying denied" - I'm surpised you've never experienced that. AND I certainly don't want to have to learn the mailserver password for a bunch of ISP's

however obviously I can upload a file from any location, so my thought was there might be an add-on to Thunderbird which could send mail to a location which would by pass ISP "X"

bpat1434

I'm thinking you've got something set up wrong since what you're describing, just shouldn't be happening. If you connect to your own ISPs SMTP server (e.g. outgoing.verizon.net) then whatever ISP you're currently using to get internet access (GoGo, Verizon, Comcast, etc.) it shouldn't matter. You're not using their SMTP server, you're using verizons, and the network traffic looks normal.

Now, you may need to try using a different port other than 25 (like 26) for sending mail since some ISPs block that port; however, I think verizon allows you to use SSL so you should be able to use port 465 or something like that for secure SMTP transactions.

Weedpacket

Another possibility is that you have Thunderbird manually configured to use a specific proxy (at your home ISP), and it's that proxy that's rejecting your attempt to connect via X.

cretaceous

I think its because some cheap web hosts don't offer proper smtp mail - you get imap or mail without an outgoing server so are obliged to go via the isp server

I've been caught out with that before - so never use a host that does not provide full smtp mail

AstroTeg

I've seen ISPs as well as wireless providers block port 25 and force you to use theirs. It isn't a matter of finding a host that will allow full on smtp services, its a matter of finding an ISP that isn't actively blocking outbound port 25 traffic (which is a lot harder to control when you are mobile).

I use the following approach for my mobile email needs, assuming the 'net provider is blocking port 25 traffic:

VPN in to home. A little slower, but the traffic is encrypted. I can email directly from my current location or use VNC/remote desktop to my home machine over the VPN (not ideal, because its even slower)
If VPN isn't an option, I will plug in my cell phone and get 'net access that way.
If the cell phone isn't an option, then the web interface will be the way to go.
You can try a proxy, but I would bet if they blocked port 25, they are going to block proxies as well. You could fiddle with a port 80 proxy and hope they haven't blocked its IP address. But then you have to fiddle with your email client to use that proxy. It is a head ache.

scrupul0us

Error 550 Relaying Denied This error occurs when an email message is sent to a server that does not recognize the sender.

You should be using outbound SMTP authentication in thunderbird using your verizon username and password on port 587... this will solve your issue

also:

http://forums.verizon.com/t5/FiOS-Internet/Thunderbird-email-program-not-sending-email-out/m-p/15316

dalecosp

scrupul0us;10936016 wrote:
You should be using outbound SMTP authentication in thunderbird using your verizon username and password on port 587... this will solve your issue[/url]

Good advice; 587 is used for "submission" and many ISP's who block 25 will still allow outbound connections to $othernet:587.

Barring this, I generally use a tunnel over ssh:

sudo ssh -L localhost:24:myserver:25 myserver

Now, that's for a 'Nix box, but I think PuTTy can also do port forwarding. (What this is doing, for those used to simpler ways of doing things, is connecting my mail server's port 25 to port 24 on my desktop computer via an SSH tunnel.). At any rate, now you get this:

telnet localhost 24
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.myname.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 myserver.myname.com ESMTP Sendmail 8.14.3/8.14.3; Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:14:09 -0600 (CST)

Unless the ISP you're using is blocking SSH (how dare they), you now have a fully-functional SMTP server on your laptop 🙂

And this is overkill, but for the archives and the Googler of the future. To keep a server that's on a DHCP link connected 24/7 to a real server, I do this with PHP (could do it with Python, Ruby, even sh, prolly):

<?php

system("/usr/local/bin/tcping localhost 24",$foo);

if ($foo) {

system("/usr/local/bin/sudo /usr/bin/ssh -f -N -L localhost:24:myserver:25 admin@myserver");

}
exit;
?>

I use the external program "tcping" to test if the connection is UP, but you could probably do it in PHP via [man]fsockopen/man.

HTH someone.

dalecosp

DOH!

...and schedule it several times/day via cron(8) or "Task Scheduler" or weth they're calling it for Win 7.