> we are testing a firewall setup at the moment and see the strange behaviour
that
> connections from inside to an outside mailserver take about 30 seconds to
> initiate while the connection to port 25 of an outside proxy machine that
> forwards the requests to the outside mailserver is fast.
> That's why we assume it's not a problem of the firewall but that qmail handles
> the connections differently. But I don't see a reason for this.
> Any clues?
>
> The firewall is a nokia box with checkpoint FW1 (newest version) and the
> mailserver is a sun ultra1 running qmail-1.03.
I am also configuring a qmail-1.03 mailserver working through Checkpoint FW1
(4.0) on a Nokia.
The mailserver is in a DMZ so smtp requests from inside go through the firewall.
I also noticed a delay such as you describe, and noticed in the firewall log
that the mailserver was trying to make an 'auth' connection (port 113) to the
client, which was being dropped by the firewall. It wasn't until that timed out
that the smtp connection continued. I configured the firewall to allow the auth
connection, and the delay disappeared. I don't know the reason for the auth
conenction.
Hope this helps.
Chris Harris
System Manager
STL Ltd.
ph. 01228 512512 ext. 2211
fax 01228 514949
