getting mail to work

[Josh Paetzel]

On Sunday 11 March 2007 10:45, Ed Zwart wrote:
> I use freebsd on an older computer in my home network to run a
> webserver, a few web apps (bugzilla, tikiwiki), and samba.  I just
> installed postfix via the ports collection so I can use the mail
> functionality of bugzilla.
>
> Bugzilla does its part correctly; I can see the message in the
> mailq, but all messages time out.  From the postfix site, I learned
> about the MTU black hole issue
> (http://www.postfix.org/faq.html#timeouts). After spending some
> time messing both with my bsd machine's hostname and my home
> network gateway's settings (domain name and mtu size), I got
> nowhere.
>
> But then I read somewhere (sorry, I don't have the reference) that
> the handshake that goes on between my MTA and the destination
> machine includes a check that I'm not spoofing a domain that I
> don't control. Makes sense!  So, I figured that I don't have an MTU
> problem at all, but a hostname/domain name problem.
>
> What I'm a little weak on is understanding is this...
>
> I own my_domain.com.  I've paid a hoster for the last couple years,
> but that's ending in a week or so.  Meanwhile, I've used dyndns to
> point foo.homedns.org to my IP.
>
> Originally, I had left the gateway's domain as the default
> (something based on my isp's domain), and set the bsd machine's
> hostname to foo.my_domain.com.  But that's why mail was failing (I
> think) because dns was reporting that my_domain.com was not the
> same as my IP.  Is this correct?
>
> Also, what are valid entries then for hostname then?  Anything I
> want, as long as it's not some domain already known in the dns? 
> Does it matter if I change my "domain" name on my LAN router?
>
> Finally, what I'd really like to do is just manage all this myself.
> I'm not providing any services to anyone but myself.  (I don't have
> users, and don't need to receive mail.)  My plan had been to pay
> dyndns to handle pointing to my_domain.com for me, but now I'm
> wondering if I can't just do that too. So, last question: does
> setting up dns on my bsd box mean I can propogate my IP for
> my_domain.com myself?
>
> Thanks in advance for help!
>
> e.

Your ISP is probably just blocking outgoing connections to port 
25...set postfix to use their smtp servers as a relayhost.

-- 
Thanks,

Josh Paetzel