Relay MTA for external delivery

[endorphine44]

Ok guys, I've read every forum post on here and can't get my server to send mail outside my network. Webmail works fine, Webadmin works fine, I can send between my 2 local domains and I can recieve any incoming mail on either domain. But I can't send outside. What am I doing wrong?

I tried several variations of my server host name (host, localhost, domain.com, server.domain.com) nothing works. I tried editing the sendmail.cf file, when I do MTA won't start. Help please.

I may be slow to post replies as I only get a couple hours at night to work on this.

[KevinH]

Well we don't use sendmail so sendmail.cf isn't the issue. In fact if sendmail is/was running Zimbra's postfix wouldn't even start.

When you try to send a message to the outside what do you see in:

/var/log/zimbra.log

[ringnebula]

Also,
If you are demoing this at home keep in mind that many "broadband" ISPs block outbound smtp connections to anything other than their own smtp servers. You can test this by simply telneting to a remote smtp server on port 25 - if it connects your are fine, if not your ISP is blocking things and you will have to work something else out.

[endorphine44]

So postfix is what I need to be looking at, I screwed that up then. Do I have to set the smart host in Postfix config file? I'll open the log and see what it says tonight when i get home.

My ISP doesn't block anything, I've been running a mail server for a few year on a windows platform. I'm trying to get away from Windows if I can, this is part of my testing for that.

Thanks for the help so far. I'll post my findings tonight.

[endorphine44]

ok here's what's in my zimbra.log file

Jan 19 12:21:04 redhat zimbramon[20987]: 20987:info: 2006-01-19 12:21:02, STATUS: redhat.joenet.net: antispam: Running
Jan 19 12:21:04 redhat zimbramon[20987]: 20987:info: 2006-01-19 12:21:02, STATUS: redhat.joenet.net: antivirus: Running
Jan 19 12:21:04 redhat zimbramon[20987]: 20987:info: 2006-01-19 12:21:02, STATUS: redhat.joenet.net: ldap: Running
Jan 19 12:21:04 redhat zimbramon[20987]: 20987:info: 2006-01-19 12:21:02, STATUS: redhat.joenet.net: logger: Running
Jan 19 12:21:04 redhat zimbramon[20987]: 20987:info: 2006-01-19 12:21:02, STATUS: redhat.joenet.net: mailbox: Running
Jan 19 12:21:04 redhat zimbramon[20987]: 20987:info: 2006-01-19 12:21:02, STATUS: redhat.joenet.net: mta: Running
Jan 19 12:21:04 redhat zimbramon[20987]: 20987:info: 2006-01-19 12:21:02, STATUS: redhat.joenet.net: snmp: Running
Jan 19 12:21:04 redhat zimbramon[20987]: 20987:info: 2006-01-19 12:21:02, STATUS: redhat.joenet.net: spell: Running
Jan 19 12:21:07 redhat postfix/smtp[20982]: connect to gmail.com[216.239.57.107]: Connection timed out (port 25)
Jan 19 12:21:08 redhat postfix/smtp[20983]: connect to hotmail.com[64.4.33.7]: Connection timed out (port 25)
Jan 19 12:21:37 redhat postfix/smtp[20982]: connect to gmail.com[64.233.171.107]: Connection timed out (port 25)
Jan 19 12:21:38 redhat postfix/smtp[20983]: connect to hotmail.com[64.4.32.7]: Connection timed out (port 25)
Jan 19 12:21:38 redhat postfix/smtp[20983]: B792A137DB8: to=<endorphine44@hotmail.com>, relay=none, delay=61, status=deferred (connect to hotmail.com[64.4.32.7]: Connection timed out)


any idea's? I removed relay MTA for external delivery settings from the webadmin screen and restarted zimbra services before trying to send and seeing this in the log.

[marcmac]

If you don't set a relay host, you have to enable DNS lookups, or postfix is going to connect to (for example) gmail.com, instead of the MX record for gmail.com, and time out, because gmail.com isn't listening on port 25.

[Tarkin]

The only thing with this is that I was using postfix with egroupware and it had no problem sending to local domains without doing a DNS lookup.
Surely there is a way around this without having to setup a separate local dns server or split horizons.

[marcmac]

Not clear what egroupware has to do with this problem.

You have two basic options:

Either add your local domains (on the zimbra box) to DNS with mx records pointing to the zimbra server, enable DNS lookups, and set no relay host


OR

Disable DNS, set a relay host, and you're done.

[Tarkin]

Sorry Marc

I'm on my early shift so I'm probably not explaining myself very well. What I was trying to indicate was with that with another groupware package running I was able to send to local domains without needing a local dns server setup. I was using postfix with it, so I was trying to say that surely there is a way to have postfix or zimbra work out that the domain the the email is being sent to is managed by itself and therefore it doesn't need to check DNS.
Does that make sense?
I think I'm not the only one who doesn't want run their own DNS service (or if you then have externally available dns have to deal with split horizons) if you have a NATed server.

Though I will add that with the new debian build I'm more likely to try this

[endorphine44]

If I check the DNS lookup enable box under the MTA tab I am no longer able to send or recieve mail.
If I remove the check and leave MTA relay empty I can recieve everything, send to local domain but not outside.
If I add my server name (redhat.joenet.net) to the MTA relay box and restart, MTA fails to restart.
Should I use my IP instead of domian name?
Sorry to keep asking, I know I'm missing something simple here.