FreeBSD 7, how to recieve internet mail

[Ian Smith]

On Wed, 14 Jan 2009 10:56:30 +0100 (CET) Pieter Donche <Pieter.Donche at ua.ac.be> wrote:

 > On FreeBSD 7, out of the box, one can send mail to internet destinations
 > and can send mail locally from one user to another user on the same
 > FreeeBSD machine
 > 
 > But it can't receive mail from internet as it appears ..
 > 
 > A sendmail is running
 > freebsd7box># ps -jaxw | grep sendmail
 > smmsp 26649     1 26649 26649    0 Is    ??    0:00.00 sendmail: Queue runner at 00:30:00 for /var/spool/clientmqueue (sendmail)
 > root  26651     1 26651 26651    0 Ss    ??    0:00.04 sendmail: accepting connections (sendmail)
 > 
 > The machine is listening on port 25
 > freebsd7box># netstat -na | grep 25
 > tcp4       0      0  127.0.0.1.25           *.*                    LISTEN

sendmail is only listening on localhost.

 > But telnettting the freebsd box with its own ip address at port 25
 > from the root account of the box
 > freebsd7box># telnet 143.129.75.1 25
 > Trying 143.129.75.1...
 > telnet: connect to address 143.129.75.1: Connection refused

sendmail is not listening on that address.  eg here, when quiet:

% netstat -an | grep 25
tcp4       0      0  *.25                   *.*                    LISTEN
% sockstat -4 | grep :25
root     sendmail   781   3  tcp4   *:25                  *:*

 > The only thing that works is
 > freebsd7box># telnet localhost 25
 > Trying 127.0.0.1...
 > Connected to localhost.
 > Escape character is '^]'.
 > ...

That'd be right; it needs to be also listening on an external interface 
address to receive mail from outside this box ..

 > How do I make the FreeBSD7 box accept connections to port 25 from all of the
 > internet ??

% grep sendmail /etc/rc.conf
sendmail_enable="YES"

cheers, Ian