I'm using a pop3 and smtp configuration connecting over WAN! Since my ISP blocked port 25 for external access I setup two ports on the Hmail server! port 25 for e-mail reception and 587 for SMTP to send e-mails.

Problem is I can't send e-mails and I get the following message.
Error Type: SMTP
Connection to recipients server failed.
Error: Host name: mail.mydomain.com, message: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.

And when I try to setup IMAP connection, I'm able to connect but e-mails do not synchronize.

Emails to public mailservers are sent on port 25, always have and always will.

Doom, You mean I can't configure my mail client to any other ports other than 25? on Exchange 2010 I configured mail clients to use 587 which is the Secure SMTP protocol with an internal CA certificate.

Ofcourse Port 25 was still open but when I closed the port 25 on the Public IP I couldn't receive e-mails not send! and used for Servers to speak to each other! but the port 25 wasn't used to send e-mails in that case I suppose?

I added both ports on the Hmail server configuration just in case the server will check any of them but issue doesn't seem to be solved!

If you have a working environment could you please send me a snapshot of your configuration so I change mine to match yours.
Thanks

You misunderstand.

You can set whatever SMTP port you like that clients can connect to, you can use 587, 12345, 31337 if you want, but that will only allow your clients (i.e. thunderbird, outlook etc) to connect to your mailserver on those ports. When a server sends email on to another public server on the internet it uses port 25.

I know, this is actually what I have done already! the client is connected on port 587 but server is configured for port 25! and I'm able to receive e-mails but not send!

I can also see that my server has the two ports listening on it 25 and 587.

So where the problem supposed to be ?

Can you run the hmailserver diagnostics please

Check firewall settings.

If mail.mydomain.com is your own host - check firewall settings on server.

If mail.mydomain.com is unrelated server used by email recipient, then setup relay in hMailServer's SMTP settings according to your ISP requirements or check your internet service contract and force your ISP to open up incoming and outgoing tcp/25 connections, if contact does not say anything about closing some ports or not running servers. Your ISP is not internet police. They provide carrier service and you are paying for all 65535 ports and all connection protocols. If they start filter things without optout option, they are liable for anything you do on the net.

If mail.mydomain.com is your ISP's server, make sure that you don't confuse smtp relay port requirements. There is no such thing as Secure SMTP. tcp/587 service is plain text service very similar to SMTP, but it might have StartTLS encryption requirement.

@matt, I ran the diagnostic and here's the result.

Test: Collect server details
hMailServer version: hMailServer 5.3.3-B1879
Database type: PostgreSQL

Test: Test IPv6
IPv6 support is available in operating system.

Test: Test outbound port
SMTP relayer is in use.
Trying to connect to host mail.mydomain.com...
Trying to connect to TCP/IP address x.x.50.98 on port 587.
ERROR: It was not possible to connect.

Test: Test MX records
Trying to resolve MX records for mydomain.com...
Host name found: x.x.50.98

Test: Test local connect
Connecting to TCP/IP address in MX records for local domain domain moh10ly.com...
Trying to connect to host x.x.50.98...
Trying to connect to TCP/IP address x.x.50.98 on port 25.
ERROR: It was not possible to connect.
ERROR: Was not able to open connection.

--

@dzekas

I disabled the windows firewall since the server is only in a lab for test. I'm using Pfsense firewall to publish the ports with static NAT rules for 25, 110 and 143. also for 587.

PS I can't really tell my ISP to open any ports since I'm in a foreign country, also I'm renting the internet line from a third party so it's impossible.

Any other way to get around this ?
thanx

BTW, This server is not joined to any DC and also not any local DNS. I have configured my ISP on my NIC dns settings in order to resolve my domain.

I have configured all the required records for the public DNS enteries. so I'm not sure if local DNS would be necessary.

This is something peculiar to your setup.

This will always try to test connection to mail.hmailserver.com (THE hmailserver mailserver) not your domain btw.

Check firewalls, test connect to that server via telnet, ask the isp of the connection that you use for their SMTP details, and if they allow forwarding via their servers

SMTP relayer is misconfigured or firewalled.

here's an update, I have reconfigured the mail server.
Deleted the port 587, and set my client to the original port 25. I'm connecting from a different location with a static IP and all ports are open.

I can successfully telnet the port 25 to my hmail server and test on Outlook, thunderbird clients are connecting on both smtp and IMAP protocols however, server still unable to send out e-mails.

I attached a snapshot from the logging part after outlook sent an e-mail. from the log it doesn't seen like there are any errors ?

When diagnosing, I see all green and no errors appears at all. so it must be some mess-configuration within the server! but i'm not sure where do I have to look ?

btw i'm receiving kind of failure delivery mail after each failing outbound mail..

From mailer-daemon@192.168.1.45
Subject: Undeliverable:
Error Type: SMTP
Remote server (my external IP) issued an error.
hMailServer sent: <Password removed>
Remote server replied: 535 Authentication failed. Restarting authentication process.

seems to me that you have the username or password incorrect for the server that you are trying to relay through

I fixed it with your help! After I revised the SMTP setting page in the documentationhttp://www.hmailserver.com/documentation/v5.3/?page=reference_protocolsmtp it turns out that SMTP Relay should be empty or setup to an external SMTP hostname.

My mistake was that I have set the smtp relay to mail.mydomain.com with port 25 and that caused it to try to connect to it self and fail.

After removing the values in there it's working properly now! I would better stick to the server's SMTP than using smtp relay.

Thanks for all of your support guys! This is a very flexible product and you guys make it even better. even though it runs on windows LOL..

Thanks again.

Just one last question, My firewall's IP gets auto-ban on the mail server and i'm using it for port forwarding to the Server.
is there away to add the IP to some sort of Safe list so it never gets ban?

Thanks

if your firewall is doing the filtering then you won't need autoban...

However to answer your question
create an IP range for the firewall's IP, and set the priority to something larger than 20, say 25
Then autoban will never apply to that device

I have added it to the whitelist, I think that should do it?

BTW, I"m trying to configure the server to use SSL certificate! I already ordered a public certificate with the server's hostname mail.mydomain.com.

I configured the private key, ssl file location and configured the ports to Secure SMTP , SPOP, and SIMAP . I restarted the Hmail services but the ports doesn't seen to be changing?

Could this be related to an error installing the certificate? I have verified that it's correctly installed along with the Root and Intermediate certificate in the server Cert store.

Am i doing this right?

Don't change SSL settings on existing ports. Create new services on 465 (SMTP-over-SSL), 993 (IMAPS) and 995 (POPS) ports.

I did, I created new ones! I setup the local IP for the server .. restarted the services nothing happened. then I changed the IPs back up 0.0.0.0! and still the server doesn't listen to these new ports! here are the ports that the server is listening to on


Active Connections

Proto Local Address Foreign Address State
TCP 0.0.0.0:25 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:110 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:135 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:143 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:445 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:4899 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:5432 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:47001 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:49152 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:49153 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:49154 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:49156 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:49169 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:49170 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 127.0.0.1:49271 127.0.0.1:49272 ESTABLISHED
TCP 127.0.0.1:49272 127.0.0.1:49271 ESTABLISHED
TCP 192.168.1.45:139 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 192.168.1.45:4899 192.168.1.254:14434 TIME_WAIT
TCP 192.168.1.45:4899 192.168.1.254:14435 ESTABLISHED
TCP [::]:80 [::]:0 LISTENING
TCP [::]:135 [::]:0 LISTENING
TCP [::]:445 [::]:0 LISTENING
TCP [::]:5432 [::]:0 LISTENING
TCP [::]:47001 [::]:0 LISTENING
TCP [::]:49152 [::]:0 LISTENING
TCP [::]:49153 [::]:0 LISTENING
TCP [::]:49154 [::]:0 LISTENING
TCP [::]:49156 [::]:0 LISTENING
TCP [::]:49169 [::]:0 LISTENING
TCP [::]:49170 [::]:0 LISTENING
TCP [::1]:5432 [::1]:49262 ESTABLISHED
TCP [::1]:5432 [::1]:49263 ESTABLISHED
TCP [::1]:5432 [::1]:49264 ESTABLISHED
TCP [::1]:5432 [::1]:49265 ESTABLISHED
TCP [::1]:5432 [::1]:49266 ESTABLISHED
TCP [::1]:49262 [::1]:5432 ESTABLISHED
TCP [::1]:49263 [::1]:5432 ESTABLISHED
TCP [::1]:49264 [::1]:5432 ESTABLISHED
TCP [::1]:49265 [::1]:5432 ESTABLISHED
TCP [::1]:49266 [::1]:5432 ESTABLISHED
UDP 0.0.0.0:123 *:*
UDP 0.0.0.0:500 *:*
UDP 0.0.0.0:4500 *:*
UDP 0.0.0.0:5355 *:*
UDP 127.0.0.1:60834 *:*
UDP 127.0.0.1:63012 *:*
UDP 192.168.1.45:137 *:*
UDP 192.168.1.45:138 *:*
UDP [::]:123 *:*
UDP [::]:500 *:*
UDP [::]:4500 *:*
UDP [::]:5355 *:*
UDP [::1]:62499 *:*

Could you show screenshot with your hMailServer's TCP Ports configuration. Including new SSL service ports.

Ok, here you go.

No that won't stop it from being autobanned.
Depending on which whitelist, it will either stop that IP being checked with all Anti-SPAM measures, or will bypass greylisting.

The whitelist has nothing to do with Autoban.

What about the Port issue! would that be a bug? Or something else?
Do I have to re-install the server again?

I doubt that it is a bug.

Have you enabled those PORTS through your firewall?

as I said I disabled the firewall on the server! and the hmail service seems not to enable those ports after I added them to the TCP IP part.

did you restart the service after adding ports?

Restarted the service, and the server but nothing happened.
BTW I'm not using OpenSSL to generate the certificates, I have the private key for the certificate and it's a public one.

The Certificate key is in a notepad with TXT extension, after I saw one of the blogs on how to secure the hmail server i noticed that the private key's extension was .key and certificate was .cert

I changed mine according to these and restarted the services but still nothing happened.
This is frustrating.

Is openssl private key encrypted?

Any errors reported in the hmailserver logs directory?

As I said I'm not using OPENSSl, this is a public certificate! I generated the CSR request from Digicert tool and submitted to one of the Trusted Certification authorities.


The private key is the CSR file generated by the digicert tool isn't it ? the only thing is that

@Matt, Not really nothing.
but everytime I check on the SSL certificate I find that the path changes, here how it looks like

C:\\Users\\postgres\\Desktop\\Cert\\hmailssl.cret

two backslashes!

Are you using postgresql database by any chance?

Your certificate has two parts. Private key and public sertificate. I don't care which tools you use to generate it. Is private key encrypted and which format is used for private and public parts of certificate?

@Doom, Yes I'm using the postgres 9.1 SQL database. Would that be a problem ?

@Dzekas as long as I understand in regard to the private key is the same one as CSR (Certificate Submit Request) ! It's the original key that generated by digicert or IIS or whatever tool used to generate the certificate request? I have that and as I said I saved it into .key extension.

The public certificate when generated, I received it as an encrypted code with instructions to save it as ssl.crt but I have changed the extension to .cert! as per one of the blogs i saw on the internet on how to enable SSL for hmailserver.

I can download the certificate in PFX format. I think this format includes all the extended properties and other Root and intermediate certificate as well which I already installed on the server.

CSR is not private key.