Re: sendmail on a laptop

[John Burton <j c burton gats-inc com>]

Trevor Smith wrote:

> I run FC2 on a laptop and I'm playing with sendmail for various reasons. 
> Currently I send through one of two ISPs' SMTP servers: either my web/email 
> hosting provider's, mail.haligonian.com, when I'm at school or my local 
> ISP's, smtp1.ns.sympatico.ca, when I'm at home.
>
> I can not use the home server when I'm at school (and not on sympatico's 
> network), nor can I use my haligonian.com server when I'm at home (don't know 
> why, it just fails). This is a pain in the butt, naturally, that I have to 
> manually switch SMTP servers every time I move the laptop between locations.
>
>  
Okay, Let's see, you have two e-mail accounts (home & school) residing 
on 2 e-mail servers which apparently only allow you to send e-mails when 
your on their network. Correct? Sounds familiar & there are at least a 
couple of ways to solve the problem, neither of which use "sendmail" on 
your laptop. This is an e-mail "client" problem, not neccessarily a 
sendmail (server) problem.

We have a central mail server at work, and users accssing it from both 
inside & outside the firewall. We have users with laptops who access it 
from virtually any network depending upon where their wireless connects. 
We use SSL for both incoming (POP & IMAP) connections and outgoing 
(SMTP) connections, which allows for fairly secure connections through 
the firewall. Other people on this list have mentioned the use of SSL 
(port 465) and how to do it.

Now to answer your question using my particular setup. I have a laptop 
which I use at work, at home, and on travel. My primary e-mail address 
is at work, I have another e-mail address for home. When using my home 
address (even from work) I send mail via my home ISPs mail server. When 
using my work address (even from home or travel) I send mail via the 
mail server at work. I use Mozilla Thunderbird from fedora core 3 with 
the following setup.

1. Initial setup wizard helps create the default incoming (imap or pop) 
& outgoing (smtp) accounts. I use imap.
2. Under the "tools" menu select "Account Settings" and you will see the 
incoming account, "Local Folders" and "Outgoing Server".
3. Under the incoming account, select "Server Settings" an make sure the 
"Use Secure Connection (SSL)" checkbox is checked (assuming your server 
supports SSL).
4. Now select "Outgoing Server (SMTP)" from the list on the left of the 
window. You will see the settings for the default SMTP server you set up 
using the initial wizard.
5. Under "Use Secure Connection" select SSL (once again assuming you 
mail server supports SSL for SMTP connections)
6. Press the "Advanced..." button and you will bring up a widget listing 
the name of your default SMTP server.
7. Press the "Add..." button which brings up a widget to setup an 
additional SMTP account.
8. Fill in the blanks and select "SSL" under "Use secure connection" 
(once again, assuming...)
9. Click okay.
10. In the "Account Settings" window, click "Add Account..." and set up 
your secondary (home) account via the account wizard.
11. Once the wizard finishes, select the new account from the list and 
then select "Server Settings".
12 Under "Server Settings" select "Advanced..." and you will see a 
widget with two tabs, "IMAP (or POP)" and "SMTP". Click on the "SMTP" 
tab and select the outgoing server to be used for that particular account.
13. Click "OK" until you're out of the "Account Settings" section and 
you're all set!


> I finally figured out how to get sendmail to send mail -- at home -- using 
>
> define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp1.ns.sympatico.ca')dnl
> and
> MASQUERADE_AS(ns.sympatico.ca)dnl
>
> I haven't tried this at school yet, when I have traditionially had to use 
> mail.haligonian.com but I'm guessing that when I'm there, sympatico will deny 
> me use to their servers.
>
>  
The use of SSL should allow you to use the mail servers from outside the 
network (assuming the mail servers are set up to handle it). Most ISPs 
block port 25 and/or unauthenticated access from outside their network.

> Does anyone have any advice on a simple, no manual intervention way to send 
> email from a laptop regardless of network that I'm attached to?
>
>  
Hope the above helps!

John