UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi there,

I have a dedicated server that sends mail with own smtp (obviously).
On this server I have a web platform for music artists that allows entries for each enrollment and sends confirmation e-mails and so on ...

Now I have purchased a service smtp (like those of smtp.com) because I would like the email arrive to the recipient to avoid being falsely labeled as spam, and would like to know how to force the server to send all email system using precisely the account of smtp.com

I do not know if this is possible.

Thanks

If you want all the emails from your server to go via this mailer, you'd need to set your local mail subsystem to use this smtp.com one as a SMARTHOST (how to do this depends on your local mail subsystem but in sendmail it's a setting in the m4 file, or in the cf if you like to hurt yourself, in postfix it's a config variable in the postfix config).

If you just want your web form mails to use the service, find the SMTP settings in there and replace localhost with your smtp.com details.

By the way, have a look at mandrill.com for outbound email - I use this service and it's free for relativly low volumes of email (thousands of messages per month). I am not at all affiliated with them etc, I just happen to like this service

Hi Smiling Dragon,

thanks for your reply

Yes, what I want to do is that everything that is sent from the server goes through an external SMTP service. In application (web form and so on ) I've already set my smtp.com details and all works fine.

So, I read what you write about smarthost, but unfortunately I'm a beginner and I don't know where to start ...
I began to study unix, and navigate folders on the server system too (root mode) I use cat - nano ad so on, but if you could tell me a little more precisely the paths where to look to change the settings I would be grateful.

How do I know what kind local mail subsystem my server use?

And after I locate the mail subsystem how do I make the change?

You can find your local mailer by seeing what's listening on the mail ports or by looking at the running processes and looking for mailers.

"ps -ef" and look for something like "sendmail" or "postfix" - one of these is most likely what you are running.

Then find the relevant config file (eg /etc/mail/sendmail.mc for sendmail, /etc/se/etc/postfix.conf I think for postfix).

A SMARTHOST is a config element that essentally says "just send everything that's not addressed to a local account on this server over to here and ask it to handle it for me".

I use a smarthost entry on my mail server to route all external mail through my ISP's mail server to prevent my outbound mails getting rejected as spam at the destination (they don't like dynamic IP address blocks as the source).

My sendmail.mc smarthost block:

Code:

# Route any mail not to be delivered locally to our ISP's smtp host 
# This stops other spam filters from rejecting mails from our dynamic address
define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp.smilingdragons.isp.com')

(Yes, that's not a typo, those are indeed combinations of backtick (`) and apostraphies (') around the names - the macro language used by the .mc file is annoying like that).

edit:
If you are running sendmail and update your .mc file, you then need to run "make" in that directory to automatically create the actual config file (sendmail.cf) and copy it into the right place. make should do this for you itself, but you can check this afterwards by running:

Code:

grep smtp.com /etc/sendmail.cf

and checking that your target smtp server made it in there.
Mine looks like

Code:

DSsmtp.smilingdragons.isp.com

(You can see why it's nicer to use the .mc file now right?)