[Coldstuff] External e-mail set up?

brandon@roguetrader.com brandon@roguetrader.com
Mon, 10 Sep 2001 08:46:46 -0600


On Mon, Sep 10, 2001 at 09:34:15AM -0500, Grimslayde wrote:
>     Yup, as usual I figure this out AFTER I send the mail. Thanks for the
> reply, though. I peeked into the $admin._reap__mail method and got the gist
> of how it's done. After a bit of tweaking on the $smtp object I was able to
> send out the mail, just like you said. Luckily I won't need to set up much
> beyond that, cuz I won't be accepting mails BACK to the core.
>     I did notice that it took all of 19 seconds to execute the mail
> sending... will it seriously lag Cold or the server if several mails are
> sent out at once?

There are two key things to keep track of when setting up outbound
mail.  The first is your maildrop, the second is what cold thinks your
hostname is.

SMTP Maildrop
-------------

Your maildrop is set by:

  @set $smtp:maildrop

By default it is localhost, which may or may NOT be a good mail drop.
You need to make certain that the maildrop is allowing you to relay
through it.  This can also be a source of lag, as the maildrop may
also be doing some black-hole listing and reverse DNS resolution.  You
can configure the maildrop to trust you and not do all of that; but it
doesn't matter TOO much because if it is just lagging when you open a
connection to it then its not lagging the rest of the cold execution
environment (vm of sorts).  The only thing that really will do this
frequently is $dns.hostname().

Server Hostname
---------------

The Server Hostname is what is appended to all email addresses (i.e.
admin@HOSTNAME), and is also important if the maildrop you are using
has ACLs and anti-spam measures.  The hostname cold sends is based on
the return value of $dns.hostname(""), which is a way of asking the
driver what the local hostname is (generated at startup and cached).
You can change this with a genesis argument: -n "use-this-hostname".
This is also useful if you want to have emails sent as a different
host, or the base domain instead of the full host.domain.

-Brandon