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Comcast blocking inbound TCP/25

Pheran

Pheran

Diamond Member
This is extremely annoying - it appears that Comcast has blocked TCP port 25 inbound, which is screwing my mail server. They've been blocking outbound for a long time, which is fine because I can just use the Comcast SMTP server as a smart host, but blocking it inbound means I can no longer receive mail. Now I've got to figure out where I can rehost my email domain and how to get it back to my server. Grrrrr. 😡
 
most companies block common 'server' ports, ftp, http, smtp etc are typically blocked when they're initiated from the outside. Preventing servers on consumer accounts. Unless you use different ports on your email server, which wouldn't be all that hard. Or you could use port forwarding on your router/firewall to make port 50000 on the outside go to 25 on the inside... unless they block all connections started on from outside, which is possible.
 
Pantlegz1 said:
Unless you use different ports on your email server, which wouldn't be all that hard.
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Sorry, but you don't understand how mail servers work. Moving off of port 25 is not an option, at least not without the use of an intermediate relay service that will accept mail on port 25 for you.
 
After looking a bit at DynDNS MailHop service, which would have solved the problem (but costs $50/year), I've decided to get rid of my home mail server and rehost my domain on Google Apps, which looks like a really slick solution.
 
Cox Home has been blocking both inbound and outbound TCP Port 25 for at least ten years. Yeah, it sucks.

(TCP Port 25 outbound is blocked unless the traffic is going to Cox's mail servers. But, as you said, OUTBOUND blocks aren't nearly the problem that INBOUND blocks are.)
 
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Pheran said:
This is extremely annoying - it appears that Comcast has blocked TCP port 25 inbound, which is screwing my mail server. They've been blocking outbound for a long time, which is fine because I can just use the Comcast SMTP server as a smart host, but blocking it inbound means I can no longer receive mail. Now I've got to figure out where I can rehost my email domain and how to get it back to my server. Grrrrr. 😡
Click to expand...

A while back I dropped my custom domain and switched to gmail. I kept my mail server though and now just have fetchmail grab my gmail via IMAP and put it in my local IMAP server and postfix forwards all mail outbound through gmail's servers as well. Although I just checked and Comcast still isn't blocking 25 inbound in my area.
 
Nothinman said:
A while back I dropped my custom domain and switched to gmail. I kept my mail server though and now just have fetchmail grab my gmail via IMAP and put it in my local IMAP server and postfix forwards all mail outbound through gmail's servers as well. Although I just checked and Comcast still isn't blocking 25 inbound in my area.
Click to expand...

The beauty of Google Apps is that you don't even have to drop your custom domain, you just set it up on top of Google/Gmail. I've only been using it for a day now but it is working great. You don't need to mess with fetchmail either since Gmail has full POP/IMAP support. It supports up to 50 users for free, which is more than I will ever need for my home domain.

Here's the Google Apps domain signup link, for the curious. You must have control over your domain's DNS for this to work of course.
 
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The beauty of Google Apps is that you don't even have to drop your custom domain, you just set it up on top of Google/Gmail.
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I know, but I wasn't the owner of the domain that I was using and I was having trouble getting hold of the real owner so it was just simpler to go with gmail.

You don't need to mess with fetchmail either since Gmail has full POP/IMAP support.
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Technically I don't have to either, but I wanted a local copy of all of my mail.
 
n0cmonkey said:
Get a business account. They probably block less.
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^ this or get a third party service. Comcast residential even says "no servers" in the agreement. However business class says "No servers unless using static IP services." I had it for a couple of years. The support people tend to be decent but your still stuck on what amounts to the residential network. I do think you get a priority boost of some sort because my neighbor used to have issues @ 7pm and I didn't. We shared the same node in the back yard though.
 
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