E-mail hosting - boy am I pissed

[Sideswipe001]

Until recently I've been hosing my own Exchange server over my cable modem - managing my own e-mail adresses, etc. Recently though, my ISP decided that SMTP wasn't a safe protocol to let people use; effectively they blocked out all SMTP traffic, except the traffic going through THEIR SMTP server. Of course, they didn't let anyone know about this - I just suddenly had a day where my e-mail stopped working. After much troubleshooting, (thinking that my hardware had gone bad - who would assume that SMTP got blocked?) I figured out that the problem lay with Knology (my ISP).

Well, I didn't mind so much when it was just sending out mail. I added a connector to my exchange server and had it send all my outgoing mail through SMTP.knology.net, and it was all peachy. But the problem is, I can't get incoming e-mail any longer. Any mail attempting to hit my server gets blocked.

Does anyone know a way around this? They want me to pay for a buisness class connection (which is way more than what I have) just to let me use SMTP. Is there a way to continue to get e-mail in?

 

[Garion]

Not really - If they block SMTP (and most big ISP's do), you're pretty much done - No way to do things the way you used to. SMTP has no provision to use a port other than 25, so if it's blocked, it's over.

The alternative would be to have your domain redirected to a 3rd party mailhost who will receive the mail from you and put it into POP mail accounts. There are plug-ins for Exchange that will allow it to pull mail from a POP or IMAP mailbox and populate it into an Exchange mailbox. This is a lot more complex and requires a 3rd party that you'd have to pay for, but it's the only way to make it work that I know of.

- G

 

[Need4Speed]

many DNS hosts offer smtp port redirection for a fee, might want to check that out

 

[mboy]

Originally posted by: Need4Speed
many DNS hosts offer smtp port redirection for a fee, might want to check that out

YES, that is the way to go for sure. I know Godaddy.com does it. Something like $5 a month if I recall correctly.

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

I think you can redirect ports using free services like DynDNS or NO-IP...

 

[Need4Speed]

smtp redirection will not be free, sometime port 80 redirections free, but i have yet to see smtp redirection at no cost

 

[Thoreau]

I ran into the same problem with Cox Cable not too long ago. Luckily for me, my web host was a huge help in getting things back to where they should be. Basically, all email coming to each of my domains goes into its own pop box on my web host's servers. *@lan-central.com, *@xanthotech.com, etc. My own mail server at home then connected to my web host once for each domain to download all messages, usually every couple minutes. From there, my server parses all mail to their respective local accounts. To send mail out, I use SMTP still, but to port 2525 on my web host's relay server. This works out really well too since if my connection at home ever dies, which isn't rare, all incoming mail is still safe and sound in a datacenter in PIttsbuigh, waiting to be downloaded later. I've been running this setup now for about 5 months with no (known) lost mail, and no complaints from the few other people using the system.

Not sure how or if Exchange could do this tho.