[IMail Forum] Certain Users Cannot complete mail transfer

[Harris Coltrain]

A peculiar problem has come up on the I-mail server that I administer. Three different users cannot receive mail from three different mail servers. For example, [EMAIL PROTECTED] cannot receive e-mails for someone in Europe the second from a server in Canada and the third a server in St.Pete.FL. I have been trying to identify some pattern between them and have not been able too. Firstly, I logged the IP of the German mail server and tried to telnet to port 25, however could not complete connection. So, I figured just must be an unstable overseas connection. However was able to telnet to it later. Then another user on another domain could not receive mail from mail.hsn.com. So telneted to port 25 and noticed that they did not have a 220 identifier for there mail server. So, figured I-mail did not take mail from unidentified servers as a security pre-caution to prevent spam.  Lastly, a user could not receive mail from www.cabletv.on.ca but when I went to port 25 all checked out fine. Establishing some sort of pattern has been trying to say the least.   They are all on domains and are all able to receive mail from other servers (I.e hotmail, msn etc.)   Here are the log files for all three connections in question. They always look exactly the same and then the connection just times out. When I check the spool directory the .d and.t files are going during the transfer as if a message is about to be received but never roll over to the Q.Just hang there and then connection times out.. When I run a packet sniffer to monitor the packet transaction I can see the mail server's going through initial "who are you" process with the 220 and 250 Reponses, and then the I-mail server says to send/data message, and then they start sending [ask] packets back and forth and the message never arrives. Any ideas are greatly appreciated 08:21 00:29 SMTPD(0004074C) [64.130.16.241] connect 192.234.237.11 port 2481 08:21 00:29 SMTPD(0004074C) [192.234.237.11] EHLO ecmail01.hsn.com 08:21 00:29 SMTPD(0004074C) [192.234.237.11] MAIL From:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 08:21 00:29 SMTPD(0004074C) [192.234.237.11] RCPT To:<joe@helpme.com> 08:21 00:29 SMTPD(queue run) 250 1 2   08:21 02:21 SMTPD(004B0348) [64.130.16.241] connect 195.20.224.149 port 22914 08:21 02:21 SMTPD(004B0348) [195.20.224.149] EHLO moutvdom00.kundenserver.de 08:21 02:21 SMTPD(004B0348) [195.20.224.149] MAIL FROM:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 08:21 02:21 SMTPD(004B0348) [195.20.224.149] RCPT TO:<joe@helpmeplease.net>   08:21 02:59 SMTPD(0287029E) [64.130.16.241] connect 216.95.162.5 port 11393 08:21 02:59 SMTPD(0287029E) [216.95.162.5] EHLO www.cabletv.on.ca 08:21 02:59 SMTPD(0287029E) [216.95.162.5] MAIL From:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 08:21 02:59 SMTPD(0287029E) [216.95.162.5] RCPT To:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 08:21 02:59 SMTPD(queue run) 260 1 1     I need a few questions answered   Does I-mail not accept mail from server's that do not have 220 identifier?   What is ESMTP vs.SMTP?           Harris Coltrain BroadCast Zone [EMAIL PROTECTED]