[quote user="NessDan"]My previous ISP did not block port 25 nor did it require you to send mail through their SMTP. My current ISP (Comcast) does not block port 25, but I'm on a Policy Blacklist according to spamhaus.org. Many major email sites like Live mail and Gmail don't accept my mail, while websites like mailcatch.com receive it just fine. I've found out that I can use MercuryC to relay mail via Gmail's SMTP and change around a few settings so that I can get my mail to send to major providers without issue so that's the good news.[/quote]

The spamhaus policy blacklist (PBL) contains IP addresses that normally don't send mail directly.  You can apply to be removed, but your current setup using Gmail to relay mail will be much more robust.

[quote]One other HUGE problem I was having until now was that whenever I sent mail from an outside source (Live, Gmail, Texting w/ phone) to my mail server, I'd look at the SMTP end-to-end log and see that the message was successfully delivered, but I didn't see anything in my inbox. This got me very frustrated seeing that no one really posts on a forum to say that their SMTP client is successfully receiving messages :P. I found out that I had to go to Mercury's Core Module > Local domains > and add my domain name (nessdan.net) to the list. This worked wonderfully! I still really wanna know why that actually made a difference...[/quote]

The local domains list tells Mercury which domains it should try to deliver locally.  Everything else it will queue for onward sending.

[quote]My final error is this: when I try sending mail from my mail server to *10DigitPhoneNumber*@txt.att.net , I get an error:

T 20101105 225232 4cd4cfc0 Begin processing job MO000004 from root@nessdan.net
W 20101105 225233 4cd4cfc0 Error connecting to primary server '209.183.32.63'.
E 20101105 225233 4cd4cfc0 Processing of job MO000004 incomplete or failed.
T 20101105 225233 4cd4cfc0 Job MO000004 processing complete.

Inside of Mercury, it says that there was a connection error during a handshake. Then the rest of the lines are txt.att.net being resolved to the IP, then trying to connect to the IP, then a Connection error. When I try sending mail to the same address using Live mail, it works fine. Any ideas on what's going on here?[/quote]

This is MercuryE again and it won't work for the reasons you have already discovered.  Go back to MercuryC :)

Glad you are making progress with your setup, but it can be slow progress using trial and error!

One of the vaguest questions, I absolutely know, but I made a video of me going through and receiving the errors, showing what my configuration is set to, and more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU7xKRQtf7c

Basically, in the end I want to be able to have an email address on my own domain (so nessdan.net) but not only that, I would also like to be able to make web applications that could utilize the mail server. I'd like to get to know the steps of how a mail server works.

Anyways, my problem stated in the video is that local mail sends fine, outside mail is less fun. Sending to live.com doesn't work (I guess that it's actually blocking me), receiving from outside sources also does not work. Then I get stuck in a loop every time I try sending mail (and sometimes when I'm receiving mail.)

Also, if you didn't watch the video, I have my SMTP end-to-end client using the IP addresses of OpenDNS. If that's incorrect than some guidance would be helpful.

Thanks for taking a look at it, if any more information is needed from my end, it will be provided.

Anyways, my problem stated in the video is that local mail sends fine,

outside mail is less fun. Sending to live.com doesn't work (I guess that

it's actually blocking me), receiving from outside sources also does

not work. Then I get stuck in a loop every time I try sending mail (and

sometimes when I'm receiving mail.)

You may need to convert to MercuryC for sending if 

 1. You do not have a fixed IP address, registered domain name and PTR record.

2.  Your ISP is blocking port 25 outbound.

Thanks for replying, I forgot to check back here so I'm no longer having the previous issue, but after a whole lot of tinkering, I've learned a lot.

My previous ISP did not block port 25 nor did it require you to send mail through their SMTP. My current ISP (Comcast) does not block port 25, but I'm on a Policy Blacklist according to spamhaus.org. Many major email sites like Live mail and Gmail don't accept my mail, while websites like mailcatch.com receive it just fine. I've found out that I can use MercuryC to relay mail via Gmail's SMTP and change around a few settings so that I can get my mail to send to major providers without issue so that's the good news.

One other HUGE problem I was having until now was that whenever I sent mail from an outside source (Live, Gmail, Texting w/ phone) to my mail server, I'd look at the SMTP end-to-end log and see that the message was successfully delivered, but I didn't see anything in my inbox. This got me very frustrated seeing that no one really posts on a forum to say that their SMTP client is successfully receiving messages :P. I found out that I had to go to Mercury's Core Module > Local domains > and add my domain name (nessdan.net) to the list. This worked wonderfully! I still really wanna know why that actually made a difference...

My final error is this: when I try sending mail from my mail server to *10DigitPhoneNumber*@txt.att.net , I get an error:

T 20101105 225232 4cd4cfc0 Begin processing job MO000004 from root@nessdan.net
W 20101105 225233 4cd4cfc0 Error connecting to primary server '209.183.32.63'.
E 20101105 225233 4cd4cfc0 Processing of job MO000004 incomplete or failed.
T 20101105 225233 4cd4cfc0 Job MO000004 processing complete.

Inside of Mercury, it says that there was a connection error during a handshake. Then the rest of the lines are txt.att.net being resolved to the IP, then trying to connect to the IP, then a Connection error. When I try sending mail to the same address using Live mail, it works fine. Any ideas on what's going on here?