Hello,
On 2013-03-08 09:52, Michel Kohl wrote:
Hello,
I am very disappointed...
I have now some time ago a LuxFibre P&T Internet line.
As soon as I had changed from LuxDSL to LuxFibre, outgoing SMTP w/ SSL
over Port 465 is not working any more.
Because I am now in a situation where I would need to have this port
open to send Emails by a third-party Email provider,
I decided to call the P&T HelpDesk.
They tried to explain that the port is not working due to technical
reasons which are LuxFibre specific,
It might be interesting to ask them what these issues would be... If
they say "spam fighting", that's not a technical reason, but an
administrative reason or a policy reason.
If it _really_ is some technical reason (such as LuxFibre using port 465
for a different purpose internally, or whatever), this is still a poor
decision on their part, as they should have known that 465 is in common
use for mail, and they should have picked a more exotic port.
and I shall use port 587 (StartTLS).
Actually, 587 is named "submission", not StartTLS, and it is intended
for just this purpose (evading port 25 or 465 blocks)
The reasoning is that 25 and 465 are open for all senders (... because
these are the ports that other providers use to send mail to the SMTP
server).
587 is specifically intended for mail submission by the provider's own
customers, and should always enforce STMP authentication.
Because of this, 587 cannot be abused for incoming spam, and so nobody
should block outgoing connections to 587.
I told them that:
1. my third-party email provider does not have the port 587 open for SMTP
2. this is not acceptable. I pay for an Internet Access which shall not
be limited by some blocked ports
They just answered that they do not care.
"Daat geht eis jo naischt un wann dier net den Service vun der Post
benotzt"...
... maybe you should indeed stop using the P&T's service and switch to
Tango? :-)
We hear more and more such statements from various helpdesks lately.
Maybe that's the "new" customer care philosophy of the 21st century?
Recently, I phoned LuxGSM because their sending of bills via e-mails
stopped working since November. Their response: "Mir si leider keng
Internet Firma". But they still have the gall of charging 2 Euro more
for sending the bills via paper mail! And they actually are an internet
service provider, as I can go online via their 3G service. And even if
they weren't, they'd (hopefully) have some kind of subcontractor that
would be handling the e-mailing for them, and that could look into the
issue?
What shall I do now?
1. asking my email provider to add and open the SMTP StartTLS service?
SMTP _submission_.
fgrep 587 /etc/services
submission 587/tcp
# Submission [RFC4409]
But with StartTLS (for encryption) enabled, of course. StartTLS is just
a way to negotiate encryption on a port which is clear text initially.
It doesn't have anything to do with specifically 587, and can also be
applied to 25, or even protocols other than SMTP (such as imap, ldap, ...)
Yes, try asking them to add STMP submission.
2. blame the P&T for their ignorance?
... or for their dishonesty, for mis-stating a policy reason as a
"technical reason". If the helpdroid just meant that this is too
technical for her, she should just have transferred you to a person who
actually knows about this stuff. But apparently the helpdesks here in
Luxembourg don't know what "escalation" and "second tier support"
is...
... or simply for their lack of care.
I am sure that many people have this problem...?
Many providers do indeed block port 25 (I've often seen the situation
with Wifi access points while traveling), but it's more unusual that
they block 465. None should block 587 however...
Best regards,
Michel
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Regards,
Alain