RH 9, Qmail, Zoneedit, linksys

First off I am an IT hobbiest. I run a small webserver from my home on cable behind a linnksys router. I wanted to set up a mail server to go along side my webserver to be able to offer the sites there own email accounts. After reading up on the options I choose qmail. I used the qmailrocks installation guide and have a clean install up to this page qmailrocks . All the telnet checks work up to sending an actual email to the server and then checking (telnet localhost 110, signing in and typing list) to see if it has arrived. So far nothing has arrived. I am using zoneedit to forward my domains(port 80 blocked) to a different port. I have set up an MX record in zoneedit with the proper mail.mydomain.com A record pointing to my address.

Here's the testing I have done.
- Telnet 1.2.3.4 110 successful
- Telnet 1.2.3.4 25 successful
- Telnet www.mydomain.com 110 won't connect
- Telnet www.mydomain.com 25 won't connect
- Telnet mail.mydomain.com 110 or 25 won't connect


I have the linksys router forwarding the ports to my mail server. Not using DHCP. For redundacy also have server set to DMZ.
I'm becoming lost and need some new directions. Can anybody help????

Tanks in advance

Peace

Ginko

>> So far nothing has arrived

Try running qmailctl queue and see if the message is still sitting in the queue.

Also check your logs. They will probably be under /var/log/qmail and the one you're looking for is qmail-send/current. qmail-send is the program responsible for local and remote deliveries. If there was a problem delivering the message, it will be recorded in qmail-send's logs.

While you're at it, you may also want to check some of the other logs to be sure everything is working right. qmail-smtpd/current will show your message being received. qmail-pop3d/current will show your attempt to check your mail.

>>port 80 blocked

Huh?

>> I have set up an MX record in zoneedit with the proper mail.mydomain.com A record pointing to my address.

Gotta be sure that your ISP isn't blocking 110 or 25 either. Simplest way is to call them and ask. But be careful... if they don't allow servers running on their networks, they might be unhappy about you trying to setup one on your account. Many ISP's require a "business" account to do this. If you're worried about telling on yourself, maybe just check their FAQ's and see if they are blocking these ports.

When you say 1.2.3.4 what IP address is that? The external IP of your system? Better if you can tell us the IP so we can check it from our end and see if it works too.

When you ran your telnet commands, what machine were you on? If you're on the localhost, this could mean your /etc/resolv.conf is incorrect and you're unable to do name resolution from your box. If you're doing these telnet commands from another machine behind your LAN, it could be a problem with your zone edit records or your DMZ settings.

The best thing you can do for yourself is get out from behind that router. It stands in the way of progress sometimes. But in doing this, you'll need a good firewall on those machines, and you'll need to have multiple IP addresses so you can have your web server running on one IP, your mail server on another, and your personal machine/router running on a third IP. This is good because then you can get away from zone edit, which can be problematic sometimes too. WHen I had an account with them, they screwed up my records a few times and had to rebuild them completely. This made troubleshooting my problems a MAJOR pain because I couldn't tell if the problem was mine or theirs. Eliminating them from the equation is the best think you can do. But of course I realize if you're on cable, this is easier said than done.

Tanks for responding so fast.

IP# = 68.70.158.40
domain name= texturae.net
no messages in the queue
nothing in the logs
I was telneting from a different machine on my lan. When trying to connect I used my lan address(successfull) my actual IP#(successfull) and my domainname(unsuccessfull).

If I can telnet to my server using the actual IP# on port 25 wouldn't that mean that port 25 isn't blocked? Either way the road around that is change my MX record to hit a different port and change the smtp to listen for it.
There is a postmaster@texturae.net set up and it is what Im sending my email to. If you could try to connect or give me a new direction I would apprectiate it. Possibly the next move is to set my box up as router,webserver and mailserver. I've been doing this in small steps so I might learn.

Peace

Ginko

When I lookup texturae.net, it returns the IP of 207.234.129.65 and 216.98.141.250. Maybe you need to double-check the DNS records for your domain and be sure they are pointed right. You should have the domain name pointed to Zoneedit, and zoneedit should be pointing to your external IP.