Does anyone know how to retrieve incoming email from the outside (internet)?
I CAN send and retrieve email in local without any problem. It also works fine when I try to send to the outside but I can NOT retrieve any new incoming email from ppl of the Internet. For some reason, I don't get any of them...


I'm using sendmail with these options in my sendmail.mc :

define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp.my_isp.com')
DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=smtp,Addr=127.0.0.1,Name=MTA')

Any ideas?

I am no expert and my lead you astray with this, but the address is pointing to your loop back device not your ISP orNIC. I would try you ISP's or mail servers ip address in there. Just a guess though

I've tried that but it doesn't change anything. I put the ip address of my isp instead of loopback but I still got the same problem.

Does anyone know how to retrieve external emails pointing to your own domain name??

You need an mx entry in a dns server. Are you in control of the dns server for your domain or is it your isp? If it's your isp you will have to ask them to setup the dns records. (Also, aikidoist72 is right, you need to make your server listen on the external interface, not loopback.)

I'm using a free dynamic DNS ZoneEdit
In my setup I got the line:

MailServer(MX)

mail.mydomain.com -> mydomain.com

Get a computer outside of your network. (Outside of your isp's network preferably.) Check what dig your.domain.com mx returns. (Should be your current IP). See if you can telnet to port 25 on that IP. If that works try sending a mail over that telnet session and watch your logs. If that works try an email client on the remote host.

I can't telnet mydomain.com 25 while using an outside connection

Here's the result when I typed the dig command

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;mydomain.com. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
mydomain.com. 300 IN A 142.12.12.1
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
mydomain.com. 7200 IN NS ns10.zoneedit.com.
mydomain.com. 7200 IN NS ns6.zoneedit.com.

So, is that your ip that dig returns?

If you can't connect to port 25 and you are sure it's not because of the firewall settings on your server, then it's probably your isp blocking port 25 to not have their user's setting up mail servers.

I'm using my isp smtp server to send out email and it works fine.

my problem is I cannot receive any external emails from the outside users send to me using my domain name

uhmm, yeah, you said that in the first post already.

By receiving you mean having a remote mail server directly contact your server, right? Not receiving as in getting the mail from a pop or imap server. I've been assuming you mean the former in which case a remote server needs to contact you on port 25. If that doesn't work it's the first thing you need to straighten out.

Yeah. Let's say I run my own mail server which is sendmail with a domain name

ex: me@mydomain.com
I want to send out email to me@yahoo.com It works fine cuz I'm using my isp smtp server
However, if I try to do the opposite which is from : me@yahoo.com send to me@mydomain.com
it doesn't work. I can't receive any incoming email.

here's what I got from yahoo.com:

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at yahoo.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following
addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<me@mydomain.com>:
Sorry, I wasn't able to establish an SMTP connection. (#4.4.1)
I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too
long.


Is that possible my isp blocks both port 110 and 25 not letting me run own mail server??

That's because the yahoo server cannot contact port 25 on mail.mydomain.com.

port 110 (pop3) doen't come into play here. Two mail servers talk on port 25. And yes, it's very much possible that your isp blocks port 25. If you have a normal cable or dsl connection you are paying for getting connected to the outside world. It's not a hosting contract. Most ISPs even have it in their terms of services that customers may not run a server off their conection.

In case my isp blocks port 25. Is there any way to run your own mailserver forwarding to another port?

If you run an smtp server on a non-standard port remote servers will not be able to connect. The only way around this is to have a computer outside of your isp's network accepting the mail for your domain on port 25 and forwarding it to whatever port you can use. There are sites out there that offer such a service. However, you will breach your contract with your isp by doing this. They block this port for a reason.

VPS hosting (and even dedicated servers) have become rather cheap. Maybe that's an option to consider.

Probably firewall stops you from getting any mail outside of your machine.

If you have KDE or GNOME,
System setting -> Security Level ->trusted services ->check Mail (SMTP)

This solved my problem.