Relaying Policy at Fermilab
As of 4/29/1999 Mail Relaying through the site mailserver has been disabled.
What is relaying?
The general definition is when someone tries to directly route mail through a smtp server from a machine not on the same site or network as the smtp server to another machine not on the same site or network as the smtp server or the originating address. This has become a preferred practice for email spammers and email system attackers for hiding their tracks.
Who is Affected?
Users and mailing lists at FNAL that point to offsite addresses will NOT be affected when using the alias.
Users that must telnet to a system at the lab to read their mail will NOT be affected by this.
Users that use FNAL dialup lines or FNAL provided ISDN lines will NOT be affected.
Users that are traveling or Users using ISP's to read mail on lab mailservers such as POPGTW, IMAPSERVER1, and IMAPSERVER2, may be affected.
But I need to relay mail
There are legitimate uses of mail relay at FNAL. People with portable machines who travel to other sites and don't want to reconfigure their machines and need to stay in contact with others are one.
We have the ability to accommodate laptop users individually and one can contact the helpdesk to arrange for an exemption. This is a manual process and we have a service goal of 1 business day to handle these requests.
In the long term, mail relay is expected to be disabled on all machines at FNAL and the use of authenticating mail agents the method of continuing the legitimate use.
The interoperability of authenticating SMTP servers and email clients is being tested.
For FNAL to accept mail one of the following must be true:
The message must have a destination address in the "fnal.gov" domain, or
The message must originate from a host in the "fnal.gov" domain. By this we mean that the host the mail is sent from must be in the fnal.gov domain. This is not the same as setting your From: address in your e-mail client to user@fnal.gov.
Problems-
I can't send mail offsite when using my ISP
Users should be using the ISP's mailserver to provide e-mail services,
particularly outgoing email. Users should have fewer problems with
incoming mail, and should under most circumstances be able to fetch
mail from the FNAL POP or IMAP servers.
Another solution is to use webmail if your account resides on the IMAP
servers. Simply point your browser at your imapserver
http://imapserverX.fnal.gov. You will be prompted for your imap username
and password. Once entered you will be able to read your imap email.
How to I change my settings?
If you are having a problem sending mail using smtp.fnal.gov along
with a private ISP you need to change your SMTP server on your email
client. Here is how to do it with some of the popular clients.
If you have any problems or questions with regard to these instructions,
please contact the Fermilab Postmaster at
postmaster@fnal.gov
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