[ILUG] Very elementary question on email

[Michael Watterson]

paul at clubi.ie wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Sep 2007, Timothy Murphy wrote:
>
>> So in fact it _is_ better to specify eircom as my SMARTHOST?
>
> No it isn't, given that:
>
> - you have a static IP
> - you have a 'clean' IP (doesn't appear to be blacklisted anywhere,
>    anyway, DNSbls are mostly useless these days anyway)
>
> About only thing you'll fall afoul is that:
>
> - elizabeth.gayleard.com does not resolve
> - reverse DNS for 86.43.71.228 does not resolve
>
> a very few hosts will refuse your mail because of that. You can easily 
> fix the former, you can ask Eircom about the latter.
>
> The advantage to direct delivery is your mail goes through quicker, 
> isn't subject to whims of an additional set of MTAs.
>
>> I certainly have no wish to use my own mail server to send out email.
>
> Think again.
>
The disadvantage is you need to keep up to date with patches, security, 
test to make sure no-one can relay. I'm not getting paid to run an ISP 
at home so that's why I take advantage of the ISP(s) mail server(s) and 
make my mail server pretend to be a client (no open inward ports). The 
speed is a red herring. Anything needed fast use IM, phone, FTP, Fax 
etc, not email.

Nowadays unless you are HUGE or an ISP you don't want to expose an email 
Server on the Internet.

-- 
Mike