# Is SMART_HOST bidirectional?



## mroussin51 (Jul 18, 2013)

Greetings,

I have configured sendmail with SMART_HOST and it works perfectly for my outgoing mail. I can not tell or seem to find any information regarding inbound mail. Does mail coming into my server go through my ISPs SMTP server?

Thanks,

Mike


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## mroussin51 (Jul 18, 2013)

Here is my maillog. I think the mail is coming directly from Google's server.


```
Jul 18 17:53:31 mail sm-mta[855]: r6ILrUMv000855: from=<my.email@gmail.com>, size=1829, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<CACvF_Z4-OKOBa_P-3qNq9KqCFSD-tPqqekcfaxy8MsD75ATrXw@mail.gmail.com>, proto=ESMTP, daemon=IPv4, relay=mail-ie0-f174.google.com [209.85.223.174]

Jul 18 17:53:31 mail sm-mta[856]: r6ILrUMv000855: to=<me@mydomain.net>, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=32090, relay=local, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent
```

Thanks again,

Mike


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## wblock@ (Jul 18, 2013)

No, smarthost is for outbound email only.  When someone tries to send email to you@example.com, it looks up the receiving system in DNS and sends to it directly (there are subtleties, that's an overview version).

Your ISP must allow the sender to connect to your system on port 25, and they might have that blocked in a firewall unless they feel you are paying for the privilege.

That log shows that things are working, or looks like it.

If the message was received, look at the headers on it.


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## mroussin51 (Jul 19, 2013)

*Yes it is working!*

Thanks again, @wblock@.

I am receiving incoming mail without a hitch. I was hoping my mail was being filtered by my ISP's SMTP server. I suppose I should configure mailscanner with SpamAssassin and ClamAV. I believe by default my mail server is not an open relay as I have tested with telnet and received the relaying denied message. If this statement is inaccurate please advise. 

Thank you, to all of the FreeBSD contributors that make it possible for people like me to have opportunities to advance.

Best regards,

Mike


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## ShelLuser (Jul 19, 2013)

mroussin51 said:
			
		

> I believe by default my mail server is not an open relay as I have tested with telnet and received the relaying denied message. If this statement is inaccurate please advise.


It heavily depends from which location you performed these tests.

But I agree that getting such an error does look reassuring.


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## mroussin51 (Jul 19, 2013)

*closed*

Thanks for the comment @ShelLuser.

I will test my server for relaying from another location.

Regards,

mroussin51


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