Re: which MTA to choose for a simple client?
On Wed, 09 Oct 2013 12:14:40 +0200
berenger.morel@neutralite.org wrote:
>
>
> By relay host, you mean the server from which I am sending this mail
> ( through a web interface )? If so, yes, I only want to discuss with
> it, except if there is some advantage ( for me or that server ) to
> directly send mails to their final server.
>
>
The main advantage, for me at least, of sending email directly to the
destination is that my MTA has a record of its transaction with the
receiving SMTP server. These days, email can disappear without trace if
it is identified as spam, or can be refused for various reasons. The
transaction records can help identify where and why it disappeared or
bounced. Persuading the admin of a smarthost (relay host) to send you
log entries can be difficult or impossible.
A further advantage is that an additional point of failure is added by
sending mail via a smarthost. This is, of course, only an advantage if
your MTA is more reliable than the smarthost, and mine is certainly more
reliable than my ISP's system.
The big problem about sending email direct is that you have to be
respectable, at least as far as other mail servers are concerned. That
means having a static IP address with a complementary public DNS A-PTR
record pair for that address. Without those, most mail servers will not
accept mail from you. My server certainly won't.
You also need an ISP which wants to keep its IP ranges off email
blacklists, which means taking quick and firm action against spam sent
by its own customers. For the most part, customers using static
addresses are businesses, which are usually better protected than home
users against being hijacked by spammers.
If you are mobile, you must use a smarthost, and one that will accept
connections from outside its own network, using authentication. Or you
can run your own smarthost at home or on a hosted server, and connect to
it over ssh or VPN.
--
Joe
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