Free Dynamic DNS & inbound/outbound SMTP?

[ADB100]

I currently use DynDNS (free) with my DSL service and it works perfectly (took a while to get the router set up correctly..). I was toying with the idea of having my own mail server but DynDNS wants paying for outbound SMTP (cheap @ £19.95 year for up to 150 relays a day). In an effort to not pay this I started to look for an equivalent that is free - i.e. Dynamic DNS with mail routing and inbound/outbound SMTP. I can't seem to find anything though, anyone know of anything?

Andy

 

[58sniper]

Good luck trying to reliably get mail flow working. Many orgs don't accept mail from dynamic IP addresses. It's generally a sure sign of a spammer.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[ADB100]

Hence the post....

I was hoping to use my domain which at the moment is a sub-domain off of one of the DynDNS prefixes (.homedns.org) and then send my SMTP traffic to their SMTP Smarthost for forwarding. I have everything set up correctly and I can receive inbound mail, however for any outbound mail to flow you need to pay.

What I was looking for is another Dynamic DNS provider who also provides free SMTP services. I am not trying to spam anyone, just run my own mail server for my own domain (without paying for it....)

Andy

 

[58sniper]

What about your ISP's smart host? Most ISPs have smart hosts that you can use for free.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[ADB100]

What about your ISP's smart host? Most ISPs have smart hosts that you can use for free.

Yes, but only for their domain prefix - i.e. user@btinternet.com. I want to use my own domain (or at least sub-domain from a Dynamic DNS provider). The DynDNS service would work fine, however it isn't free....

Andy

 

[58sniper]

Then you need a new ISP. Most I've seen allow you to route your mail through their SMTP, using your own SMTP domain space.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[ADB100]

Then you need a new ISP. Most I've seen allow you to route your mail through their SMTP, using your own SMTP domain space.

OK. After a bit more playing around I have this working using my ISP's smarthost to relay the SMTP messages. I have the evaluation version of Exchange 2007 running and I was attempting to use the FQDN of my ISP's SMTP SmartHost (mail.btinternet.com). This fails as there are no DNS MX records for this domain. This behaviour doesn't seem correct to me - why does exchange need to look up MX records if it's just relaying everything to a SMTP SmartHost?
Anyway I resolved the name 'mail.btinternet.com' to it's IP address and used this instead of the FQDN and it started to work.

I have since searched and this behaviour is expected with Exchange 2007....

Andy

 

[donb01]

Then you need a new ISP. Most I've seen allow you to route your mail through their SMTP, using your own SMTP domain space.

In my experience I would also add the qualifier "as long as you are connected to their network." Otherwise you may end up getting bounce messages with "Relay Access Denied."

The new antispam efforts usually block people on other networks from sending out mail on each other's servers. This is probably THE primary reason I started off setting up my own server - because maybe 7 or 8 years ago my ISP started blocking access from users not on their network and I was no longer able to send mail thru my personal account while connected at work. In my case I have the server configured the same way - so that only people in my IP block (or my Company's main IP) can send using my server, but I also went a step further and implemented 'pop-before-smtp' so that my Sister in South Carolina who's business website I host can connect to my server using her dial-up account and have a way to authenticate so she can send out mail....

Some ISP are also now blocking port 25 by default if you are not on their network (and some even if you are) - especially from IP addresses from dial-up providers, and you have to contact them to have the block removed if you have a special reason to do so.

 

[58sniper]

Hence my comment

your ISP's

If it's your ISP, you're on their network. And most will gladly provide you with information needed to use them as a smart host.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[ADB100]

As I said this is now working. What I didn't think would work was my ISP's smarthost accepting mail with the sender and return address being anything other than one of their domains. i.e. My DynDNS domain is xxxx.homedns.org. When I send mail from my mailserver the sources are user@xxxx.homedns.org etc.
The Exchange 2007 'feature' of looking up MX records for the SMTP smarthost threw me a bit as I wasn't expecting this behaviour. It is working and I now know the steps needed to get it working so I'll have a sit down and a re-think on what I want to do with it....

Andy