Troubleshooting SMTP Send Failed

[daniel_spain]

Ragtop wrote:
> Has anyone had any luck with this? I've double checked all my settings with
> no luck. I then tried setting up outlook on the same computer to test. All
> mail sent through outlook sends and receives fine. Sent through WG with all
> the same settings it craps out. Is there a galsmtp i can get that
> definitely works? I have to think the problem is with the module since
> outlook works.

GALSMTP out the box does not log into a smarthost the one you have was modified to
use login credentials. that is the only change. i will look this evening and see what it says
to me on an out of the box install fresh on a cloud instance not even connected to my own isp.

[Ragtop]

Hey Dan. Yes I'm using the galsmtp you sent me years ago which includes authentication, although I have several versions floating around. Possibly I have one installed that wasn't working properly and want to make sure I have a good one. The weird part is that no matter what smarthost I put in, I get the same error message in the audit file:

(Dial) Failed to connect to 66.96.140.125

Always the same IP listed, no matter what i change. I can't find this ip anywhere in the settings. Any ideas? Would love to get this working properly.

[daniel_spain]

Ragtop wrote:
> Hey Dan. Yes I'm using the galsmtp you sent me years ago which includes
> authentication, although I have several versions floating around. Possibly
> I have one installed that wasn't working properly and want to make sure I
> have a good one. The weird part is that no matter what smarthost I put in,
> I get the same error message in the audit file:
>
> (Dial) Failed to connect to 66.96.140.125
>
> Always the same IP listed, no matter what i change. I can't find this ip
> anywhere in the settings. Any ideas? Would love to get this working
> properly.

so when smtp send processes it does like so...

[code]
if((usesmrt) && (smtsmrt[0]!='\0')) {
stzcpy(prcs->dns.name,smtsmrt,DNSNSZ);
}
[/code]

all the prcs-> pointers are set by GALDNS via the GALTCPIP library. all i did was modify the sender to always check
if you were using a smarthost, if not it sends directly which alot of isps allow if under a business account but if not
it would use a new authentication procedure using PLAIN_LOGON which simply sends first "AUTH LOGIN" if you have
a smarthost enabled. if it receives code 334 it sends the name. upon reception of 334 again it sends the password
(both encoded with base64) then if it receives code 235 it sends the email.
the ip stuff is done by the TCPIP stack nothing in the sender is coded. that particular ip is registered to BIZLAND
in jacksonville,FL and i wrote that when i was in maryland. years ago when testing i believe i set the dns servers of the
bbs to googles 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4 (i think) and it worked fine also wg/mbbs sometimes removes the domain from
the email which i found troublesome too. i am rebuilding the DLL with a new tracer that will audit every single step
so it can be tracked better. tech has changed so much from 2013 it is very possible i just need to tweak some behaviors
like i did when a church that was using it needed to connect to a relay host that required tls

i have a tele-arena platinum build i need to finalize this afternoon then im gonna grab an old all-in-on dell pc i have on a shelf, install a base
bbs and get into this more. should have some answers within a day or so.

[daniel_spain]

Ragtop wrote:
> Hey Dan. Yes I'm using the galsmtp you sent me years ago which includes
> authentication, although I have several versions floating around. Possibly
> I have one installed that wasn't working properly and want to make sure I
> have a good one. The weird part is that no matter what smarthost I put in,
> I get the same error message in the audit file:
>
> (Dial) Failed to connect to 66.96.140.125
>
> Always the same IP listed, no matter what i change. I can't find this ip
> anywhere in the settings. Any ideas? Would love to get this working
> properly.

ok i created a setup in the office. a major bbs 10 install and a dedicated smtp relay server. as soon as i get the email with the activation code
ill proceed with testing. got a new build as well with detailed tracing.

[daniel_spain]

update on this....

seems alot of relay servers i have tested thus far that support login are set to "plain" login
which means i have to send the username/password in a single string base64 encoded over
the normal "auth login" where after code 334 you send name and password individually.
also a thing to check is if spamhaus has your ip in their DBL seems if you send email from
outside your isp's smtp server as in you run your own mail server you have to go through a few steps
to have the ip removed from their database. why i have 50 ips that have never been used ever in their
DBL noone will ever know. seems to me they auto-flag ips some how and from what i have read
there is only 1 way to get it removed. i did manage to get the ip out of the database on my smtp test server
so i can test so it is not hard to do.

so i am creating a new build where you can set which type of authentication is required
right now i am just doing "LOGIN" and "PLAIN" i may add a "CRAM-MD5" if needed but
the others "DIGEST-MD5, NTLM, GSSAPI, XOAUTH, XOAUTH2" i will not mess with right now.
also some relay servers require "tls required" i am looking into this reading up on some rfc
processes and looking at some other smtp code snippets on how i can incorporate different
things like "HELO" "EHLO" etc... so i am working on it. i did something similiar for a church
that was using GALNNTP and it worked great so for the next couple days i will be playing with this.

[Ragtop]

Mine is not a problem with AT&T or my ip. I have Outlook running on the same machine sending through the same server with the same login settings. Outlook works but Major doesn't. And like I said before, it doesn't matter what smart server I put in, I get the same error message in the audit file showing the same ip address it's trying to connect to. Can't find that ip anywhere in any of the settings.

Not trying to be pushy. Just making sure you're aware of all the facts for my situation. Really appreciate all the work you all are doing on this project. Wish I could help more but I'm not a programmer. All I can do is test and report results.

[daniel_spain]

Ragtop wrote:
> Mine is not a problem with AT&T or my ip. I have Outlook running on the
> same machine sending through the same server with the same login settings.
> Outlook works but Major doesn't. And like I said before, it doesn't matter
> what smart server I put in, I get the same error message in the audit file
> showing the same ip address it's trying to connect to. Can't find that ip
> anywhere in any of the settings.
>
> Not trying to be pushy. Just making sure you're aware of all the facts for
> my situation. Really appreciate all the work you all are doing on this
> project. Wish I could help more but I'm not a programmer. All I can do is
> test and report results.

i fully get it, problem is i cannot duplicate it. if it is isp related like it was back in 2019 with another sysop i can contact them and work it out but i have done 3 different tests.

test 1.... installed out the box a worldgroup server, sent email by using no smarthost and it delivered successfully.,

test 2... installed out the box a worldgroup server, sent email using my isp's smtp server and it sent successfully.

test 3 ... installed out the box a worldgroup server, sent email using my own relay server and it sent successfully.

still working on a 4th test using a major bbs v10 server (having issues with it staying online) and once that is working i can do a full test on that one.

when you are sending whom are you relaying through? if you want to do a test outside of your isp and send me your ip i can create a temporary account on my relay server and you can try it and if it works we'll be able to isolate it to an isp issue and not software.

[Ragtop]

I'm going through domain.com. But I really don't think it's isp related since I can use outlook and send with no problem using the same server and login info. Can you send me your latest version of smtp? I'm thinking maybe I have an earlier one that isn't working right. If you want me to try testing through yours, my ip is 99.89.65.1

[daniel_spain]

Ragtop wrote:
> I'm going through domain.com. But I really don't think it's isp related
> since I can use outlook and send with no problem using the same server and
> login info. Can you send me your latest version of smtp? I'm thinking maybe
> I have an earlier one that isn't working right. If you want me to try
> testing through yours, my ip is 99.89.65.1

some isps require EHLO to be sent whereas GALSMTP sends the old HELO
command. by sending EHLO you can get the auth requirements, tls requirements, etc...
i wrote this 10 years ago to use simple auth login and email sending and there may
be some isp mail server rules it has trouble with. i have used a synchronet internet
server to host backend stuff for my bbs for many years.. door server, message networks,
irc server, ftp server, smtp-relay server, you name it plus i can wed out spammers
and set blacklists up.... yes i will eventually rework galsmtp but its gonna take a bit
since i dont want to just layer on top of the original i want to redo the entire stack.
i wrote a tele-arena 5.6 standalone win32 server about 5 years ago and about a year or 2 ago
i added the ability to email verify accounts and to do this i wrote a simple smtp email sending util
which would work great for what i want to do, problem is i need to find an ssl library compatible
with bcc 5.5 since it does all the hard work for STARTTLS commands.

[Ragtop]

Ok I think I understand. The module was written to meet the login standards at the time. Those standards have changed since then so it no longer works. I'm fine with that. My main concern was whether I need to continue trying to get it to work. There's nothing I can do from my end to fix it until a new module is written. Is that correct? Again, not complaining. Just making sure I understand what you're saying.