SMTP Relay Server Setup

[ve3nrt]

When on TekSavvy, I used smtp.teksavvy.com as my SMTP relay server from a Postfix service on Linux.

I am trying to do the same thing with Rogers Ignite. There are some hints on this forum, but none of them work.  I am receiving mail fine but cannot send mail from my own domain running on the server at home. 

Any ideas on this?

Thanks,

Chris

***Edited Labels***

[yorkman]

I just switched from Bell to Rogers a few days ago. I still have to cancel Bell which means I can still use either ISP.  I will likely cancel Rogers for 2 reasons though and go back to Bell. The main one is that Rogers gives you only 50 Mbps upload speeds on their 1.5 GB package (I knew that before signing). The other smaller reason is the inability to send/relay mail through Rogers (I expected that). Only reason why I decided to try Rogers is because I got a good deal. It's $17/mo after taxes cheaper than what I got with Bell...though with Bell I got 500 Mbps download and 500 Mbps upload which is fine with me as I don't really need more than 500 Mbps download. The 500 Mbps upload is really nice to have but I don't need it all that often. It's great to have though when you do need it. So basically I'm debating whether I should go with Rogers or likely back to Bell at $17/mo more (because I like to have 500 Mbps upload when needed). Mind you also that with Rogers I only get about 850 Mbps max. (of that 1.5 GB) download due to my 1GB hardware limitation throughout the house.

Anyway, with Bell you can't relay either. As a matter of fact their inbound 25 and outbound ports like 587 are blocked completely so I went with the Dynu.com workaround years ago when I signed up with Bell. For $9.99 USD/yr it's a decent trade-off. I was able to use that with Bell to receive/send emails through my mail server. With Rogers, you can receive mail on port 25 using your mail server but to send emails you'll have to use a mail relay like dynu. Hope that helps.

[yorkman]

Update: I haven't tried for many years so the above answer was based on my past Bell experience. I tried to send and receive mail today via Bell and I was able to both send and receive emails with my mail server. Just be sure to use the correct Bell login username/password for your smtp connector and that you have a valid spf record otherwise emails to gmail email addresses won't go through. Having a perfectly correct spf record was my biggest challenge for gmail emails to work but was finally able to figure it their multi ip4 records.

[yorkman]

Update 2: Unfortunately I was still connected to my Rogers ISP when I did the above testing which was successful. Now that I verified I'm connected to my Bell ISP, I can only send mail from my mail server. Bell blocks incoming mail ports like 25 so that's why I couldn't receive mail until I enabled my dynu.com smart relay for my mail server. This also means that if you're with Rogers but also have Bell or you know someone that does have Bell for their isp then if they're willing (perhaps a family member living elsewhere or a good friend) you can use their Bell email address and password for the receive connector authentication (or you can ask them to create a 2nd Bell email & password - you can have up to 5 Bell email addresses) and you'll also be able to receive emails on port 25, as long as you're with Rogers or another isp that doesn't block incoming port 25. Obviously this isn't recommended since you're relying on someone else's isp which they could cancel or change any time.

So the final solution is for incoming mail you'll have to use a relay like dynu.com for $9.99/yr. To send mail through Bell, again, just be sure to setup your smtp smart host & basic authentication in your mail server correctly. That should be your Bell email address (example: john@bell.net ) & password. Apologies for all the confusion.

To summarize: If you have your own mail server that you want to use for incoming/outgoing mail then it's like this:

Rogers: You can receive emails but you won't be able to send emails (since Rogers won't let you relay emails through them) - Solution: relay thru dynu.com (get their SMTP Outbound Relay service for $9.99 USD) or some other relay service

Bell: You cannot receive emails (since incoming port 25 is blocked) - Solution: relay your emails through dynu.com (get their Email Store/Forward service for $9.99 USD).

Note: I don't work for dynu but I've been using these 2 services with them for several years and have no issues recommending them. Of course you can use whoever else offers the same services.