Depends entirely on your ISP's policy, you should check with them.

Hi peeps and thanks for taking your time to check this out for me.

I have Windows 7 installed and have apache and MySQL installed along with a correctly configured ftp server and they're all working very well. So I'm now working on mail as I thought I'd save the best till last!

I'm using Mercury 4.7, have a full internet connection and though I am behind a router I have allowed acces through ports 25 (SMTP), 587 (the alternative if 25 doesn't work, I think) and 143 for my IMAP.

I have decided to install Mercury E (end to end) to bypass the ISP and have followed the manual through very carefully. Thanks for the step by step instructions and examples, they were very useful.

Using Zone Edit, I've created an MX entry for mail.threepwud.com and in IP addresses (A) I have created an entry for mail.threepwud.com and forwarded that to my IP like I have for the domain under http. Is that correct so far?

I have setup the modules to work, so I thought, and can recieve e-mails perfectly. I have created two users (admin@threepwud.com for postmaster) and a standard threep@threepwud.com address to test it. I can recieve from hotmail accounts and can indeed recieve and send internally but when either account tries to send to the hotmail address I get an error in the 'end to end' window log. It says:

'Permenant error 11001 [non-existent host or domain] resolving 'hotmail.com'. I've searched elsewhere but most people are using a pop3 configuration or a relay Mercury protocol (mercuryc?).

Is this an error with my MX settings, my Mercury E settings or is it commonly elsewhere? I am more than happy to post the mercury.ini contents if that would help.

In my client (Outlook, sorry, not pegasus though it looks very nice!) I have created an IMAP account and use mail.threepwud.com for incoming mail and this works. the SMTP outgoing doesn't work with anything I've tried and I'm hoping I am just missing something simple!

Thanks for your help and time!!

> I have Windows 7 installed and have apache and MySQL installed along with a correctly configured ftp server and they're all working very
> well. So I'm now working on mail as I thought I'd save the best till last!

Good idea.

> I'm using Mercury 4.7, have a full internet connection and though I am behind a router I have allowed acces through ports 25 (SMTP), 587
> (the alternative if 25 doesn't work, I think) and 143 for my IMAP.
>
> I have decided to install Mercury E (end to end) to bypass the ISP and have followed the manual through very carefully. Thanks for the
> step by step instructions and examples, they were very useful. Using Zone Edit, I've created an MX entry for mail.threepwud.com and
> in IP addresses (A) I have created an entry for mail.threepwud.com and forwarded that to my IP like I have for the domain under http.
> Is that correct so far?

Looks good.

Answer Section:
    threepwud.com, A, 94.170.240.143
    threepwud.com, MX, 0, mail.threepwud.com
    threepwud.com, NS, ns3.zoneedit.com
    threepwud.com, NS, ns17.zoneedit.com


> I have setup the modules to work, so I thought, and can recieve e-mails perfectly. I have created two users (admin@threepwud.com for
> postmaster) and a standard threep@threepwud.com address to test it. I can recieve from hotmail accounts and can indeed recieve and send
> internally

Post 25 inbound works.

> but when either account tries to send to the hotmail address I get an error in the 'end to end' window log. It says:
> 'Permenant error 11001 [non-existent host or domain] resolving 'hotmail.com'.

Have you entered the IP addresses of your DNS hosts in the MercuryE setup?

 ns3.zoneedit.com = 76.74.236.21
ns17.zoneedit.com = 209.126.159.118

> I've searched elsewhere but most people are using a pop3 configuration or a relay Mercury protocol (mercuryc?).

If you have a randomly assigned IP address then you really need to use MercuryC for sending via your ISP's relay host since many SMTP hosts block servers using randomly assigned IP addresses from the dial-up user pool.

> Is this an error with my MX settings, my Mercury E settings or is it commonly elsewhere? I am more than happy to post the mercury.ini contents if that would help.
> In my client (Outlook, sorry, not pegasus though it looks very nice!) I have created an IMAP account and use mail.threepwud.com for
> incoming mail and this works. the SMTP outgoing doesn't work with anything I've tried and I'm hoping I am just missing something
> simple!

Use either threepwud.com or the IP address of the Mercury/32 system.  Also make sure you use port 587 instead of port 25 to ensure you are not being blocked by your own firewall.

This is a name resolution error, Mercury isn't getting an IP address for a mail handler for the domain hotmail.com.

The log window for MercuryE will at startup show the name servers it will use for name resolution. In your case this should probably be the name servers that your Internet provider supplies. It seems the ISP is virginmedia.net, and their name servers are:

- Name=ns1.virginmedia.net

    IP Address=62.253.162.237

- Name=ns2.virginmedia.net

    IP Address=194.168.4.237

- Name=ns3.virginmedia.net

    IP Address=62.253.162.37

- Name=ns4.virginmedia.net

    IP Address=194.168.4.33

If Mercury isn't able to get this information from Windows, which can happen in some cases, you will need to provide it in MercuryE configuration.

/Rolf 

Thanks for replying!

 I have indeed added the IP addresses, seperated by a comma, for the two name servers (209.126.159.118 being one). Also I have port 25 and 587 as an alternate port but changed the main port to 587 and still have the same error (all being configured in MercuryE).

As for the IP, it's pretty much static - it hasn't changed in months and my domain hasn't needed to be forwarded to another IP for quite some time.

Is that what you meant with this?
'If you have a randomly assigned IP address then you really need to use MercuryC for sending via your ISP's relay host since many SMTP hosts block servers using randomly assigned IP addresses from the dial-up user pool'

Thanks again

[quote user="Rolf Lindby"]

This is a name resolution error, Mercury isn't getting an IP address for a mail handler for the domain hotmail.com.

The log window for MercuryE will at startup show the name servers it will use for name resolution. In your case this should probably be the name servers that your Internet provider supplies. It seems the ISP is virginmedia.net, and their name servers are:

- Name=ns1.virginmedia.net

    IP Address=62.253.162.237

- Name=ns2.virginmedia.net

    IP Address=194.168.4.237

- Name=ns3.virginmedia.net

    IP Address=62.253.162.37

- Name=ns4.virginmedia.net

    IP Address=194.168.4.33

If Mercury isn't able to get this information from Windows, which can happen in some cases, you will need to provide it in MercuryE configuration.

/Rolf 

[/quote]

This is very interesting - does this need to be included if I'm using MercuryE end-to-end?

EDIT: I've replaced the IP addresses zone edit gives me with those you've listed and I get the exact same error.

 I have indeed added the IP addresses, separated by a comma, for the

two name servers (209.126.159.118 being one). Also I have port 25 and

587 as an alternate port but changed the main port to 587 and still

have the same error (all being configured in MercuryE).

Huh?  MercuryE always uses port 25 to make it's connection to receiving SMTP hosts.

As for the IP, it's pretty much static - it hasn't changed in months

and my domain hasn't needed to be forwarded to another IP for quite

some time.

Pretty much static does not hack it.  The blacklists are for all the IP addresses from the dial-up user block.  The IP address rDNS for IP address is cpc1-pres15-2-0-cust142.pres.cable.virginmedia.com.  This name in itself may be enough for those using blacklists to block mail from the IP address.

Is that what you meant with this?

"If you have a randomly

assigned IP address then you really need to use MercuryC for sending

via your ISP's relay host since many SMTP hosts block servers using

randomly assigned IP addresses from the dial-up user pool"

This means if you IP address is not permanently assigned to your connection then there are many, many hosts that will reject your connection out of hand as spam.  In this case you need to use MercuryC and send mail via another SMTP host that does have a fixed IP address.

So, as I'm merely a standard non-static internet user my ip is mostly automatically on a blacklist for the other smtp servers like hotmail and yahoo? Wow, never considered that before!

 So if I asked my ISP to become static I'd be allocated a non-blacklisted IP? Is that how it works?

[quote]'Permenant error 11001 [non-existent host or domain] resolving 'hotmail.com'.[/quote]

This implies that your ARE getting a reply from a DNS server, but the DNS server thinks 'hotmail.com' is non-existent (maybe double check spelling?).

I would expect a "Temporary resolution error" if MercE could not do a successful lookup.

Mercury must be restarted to enable any changed DNS servers in MercE settings.

Once you solve your DNS issue you may find that some servers (particularly hotmail and the like) will reject your connection because your IP address is listed as part of a dynamically assigned range. There is nothibg you can do about this apart from getting a REAL static IP from your ISP.

[quote user="Threepwud"]

So, as I'm merely a standard non-static internet user my ip is mostly automatically on a blacklist for the other smtp servers like hotmail and yahoo? Wow, never considered that before!

 So if I asked my ISP to become static I'd be allocated a non-blacklisted IP? Is that how it works?

[/quote]

Yes.

Guys, genius!

 Thanks awfully - this has now worked a treat - I've used smtp.blueyonder.co.uk in Mercury C and my hotmail account recieved the test e-mail so it seems, simply, my IP was blacklisted. Heh!

 Does relaying impose restrictions? 99.5% this won't happen but if I had 400 users e-mailing in the same hour, would it cause my ISP to have bother with me?