Connecting Intranet POP3 Server To ISP - Help

[CJM]

I have a small Mac based POP3/SMTP server running our intranet E-Mail. We've recently installed a CICSO 1601 Router to link provide us with External mail access, via an ISP.<br>
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The routers are configured, i.e. I can send & receive mail from our ISP's mail servers, I can Telnet, FTP and Browse the great outdoors, but incoming e-mail does not get transfered from the ISP Mail server to ours or out-going mail does not get sent.<br>
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What should I be looking for in terms of mail server configuation? What exactly is an DNS Mail Exchange Record and how does it work? Mention Apple Mac to our ISP and their eyes glaze over. Any help much appreciated.

 

[sunstar]

Sounds like your sending out signals that don't know how to get back. Try adding a static address to the router pointing towards your mail server. Does your POP# server have any anti-spam filtering? You may need to "allow" access by telling the program the IP Address of your ISP.

 

[wild]

Not exactly sure what you asked there but does this help? Are your ip addresses legal internet addresses or internal network addresses of the form 10.0.0.1 or 192.168.1.1? If they are proper subnets recognizable and unique then they must be mapped to an mail exchanger. If your ISP is willing to do it then that should be fine. Do all stations have inet access via the router or are you using a single point access and masquerading? If the former an MX record is required pointing to your mail server for the machines under your wing. A masqueraded system would need to have parallel ID's on the ISP side of the email bridge. Fetchmail would take care of popping email in via cron task while SMTP would handle the outgoing via your ISP as smarthost.