Re: [cobalt-users] RaQ3i - Sendmail upgrade, general

[sm <sm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
At 16:19 21-03-2003 -0700, Dave Reid wrote:
>I have a some questions and a request resulting form a major meltdown
>with our SMTP and SPAM! We were getting so many spam's relaying through
>it was shutting down our SMTP server, this was a result of having added
>yahoo.com and yahoo.ca to the allowed Relays because of some serious
>whining from a couple of clients who had friends using a yahoo email

Never add relays unless the hosts are static IPs and you trust them.
Adding yahoo.com and yahoo.ca to the allowed relays isn't recommended.
You'll only create more problems.

>1) Is there a problem with the way SMTP is functioning on our server.
>>From the day I set up the server I have had to add any domain I wanted
>to send email to into the Relay section of the email setup on the Cobalt
>GUI. For example if I wanted to send an email to dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxx I
>had to add microsoft.com to the Relay box in the email properties under
>the control panel in the GUI. Is this the way it is supposed to work? I

No, that is not the way to configure your mail server to allow you to
relay.  If you or your customers have a static IP address, you can add that
address to the Relay section if you want to allow them to use your SMTP
server to send mail.  If your customers are using dynamic IP addresses, you
can you POP3 before SMTP authentication.  There is a Cobalt package for
that.  You should _not_ add domains such as microsoft.com to allow the mail
to be sent to that domain.

>have always thought this was not quite right, but other cobalt owners
>indicated that's just the way it is on a RaQ. If that entry is not there
>I get a relaying denied error (error 550). But really, I am not trying
>to relay from a 3rd party, I am just trying to send an email to an
>outside address though a domain hosted on our server.

That is not the way things are done on a RaQ or any properly administered
mail server.  You are actually doing third party relaying.  There is
nothing wrong with that type of relaying unless it is open to everyone.

>2) I have the sendmail 8.9.3 package released by Package master for the
>Cobalt Raq3 installed, and would like to upgrade to the sendmail 8.12.8
>directly from sendmail.org. Is there any known problems doing this
>upgrade on the RaQ3i. Port sentry and the utility that sends me

Please search the archives.  There was links posted for a 8.12.8 sendmail
package.  You can also upgrade using the source available on sendmail.org
if you know what configuration tweaks should be done to have sendmail
configured the Cobalt way.

Regards,
-sm