[Dovecot] Bit of a Newbie Question

[Robert Cooper]

Jud wrote:
> Wouter Van Hemel wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005, Jud wrote:
>>
>>> Apologies in advance - I'm sure there's something quite obvious I'm not
>>> doing correctly, but since I'm unable to resolve the problem myself....
>>>
>>> I've installed Dovecot 99.14 on FreeBSD-CURRENT using the Dovecot
>>> FreeBSD port.  My "network" consists of a cable modem connected to a
>>> router which is in turn connected (only) to my computer.  My ISP assigns
>>> a dynamic IP address.  I have ddclient set up to sync the dynamic IP to
>>> my hostname and MX via dyndns.org.
>>>
>>> Local operations (local delivery via Postfix or copying/moving/deleting
>>> with Thunderbird) work fine.  Mail delivery from remote machines does
>>> not seem to work via either IMAP or IMAP-SSL.  (That is, test e-mails I
>>> send from this [Fastmail] account to my local IMAP server never reach
>>> their destination.)  Enabling port forwarding on my router for ports 993
>>> and 143 has made no difference.
>>>
>>
>> What do you mean with "Mail delivery via IMAP"? 
> 
> 
> As noted above, "That is, test e-mails I send from this [Fastmail] 
> account to my local IMAP server never reach their destination."  In 
> slightly more detail, mail sent using Fastmail's SMTP-SSL server, 
> mail.messagingengine.com:465, does not arrive in my local IMAP Inbox.
> 
> It is up to your MTA and
> 
>> LDA (postfix, I presume) to deliver these mails into a folder where 
>> the imap server can find them. This has little to do with dovecot.
>>
>> Check your postfix configuration... or, your provider may be blocking 
>> access to port 25. Many providers do.
> 
> 
> As also noted above, local delivery via Postfix appears to work fine. 
> For example, ddclient is configured to send failure or success messages 
> to user "jud," and indeed these messages appear in the local IMAP Inbox 
> for "jud."
> 
> Apologies for having caused confusion by referring to "mail delivery" 
> and Postfix.  I am not having any problem *sending* mail at all.  The 
> problem is that messages sent from a remote machine (using port 465 from 
> a mail server not owned by my ISP) are not received in my local IMAP 
> Inbox, while messages sent from the local machine are.
> 
> I agree that Dovecot is not doing anything wrong.  I am hoping someone 
> may be able to help me learn what *I* am doing wrong.
> 
>>> What should I be doing to make this work correctly?
>>>
>>> Jud
>>>
>>>
>>
> 

I'm fairly certain that this is a Postfix configuration issue, unless 
the sending SMTP server is "losing" the message if it's being rejected 
or the sending server can't be found.

Do you have anything like SpamAssassin or dspam in the mix?

Can you get Fastmail's Postmaster involved to check the outgoing message 
logs?

Does it work when sending from a Yahoo or Hotmail account?

There's some troubleshooting to go here.  I will also suggest the 
Postfix mailing list (see http://www.postfix.org) if you can't figure 
out anything from their documentation.  You can always post your results 
from 'postconf -n' to their list for additional assistance (after 
searching the archives for help first, of course!)

RobertC