92167 - Include an SMTP server module (allow direct mail delivery)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(MailNews Core :: Networking: SMTP, enhancement)

Description

[Alfonso Martinez]

It could be an interesting feature to add the posibility to send mails using an
internal SMTP server.

If the user chooses to enable it, then it's outgoing mail will be handled by
this module, and there's no need to use an external smtp server for this account.

This is the basic idea, from my point of view quite simple, but also an
enhancement that isn't needed any time soon.

Comment 1

[Ninoschka Baca]

Interesting, adding kmurray and jglick to Cc: list.

Comment 2

[Scott MacGregor]

future.

Comment 3

[Morten Nilsen]

noting that this hasn't been worked on yet, just to get it off the old bugs list

Comment 4

[Alfonso Martinez]

I'm taking the freedom to close this bug as WontFix (well, I'm the reporter)

Given the future plans of Mozilla I think that the only place for this code
would be at mozdev.org, but if anyone wants to work on it, please reopen this
bug as you like.

Comment 5

[Christian Eyrich]

*** Bug 213635 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Prognathous]

I believe that this feature is becoming increasingly needed - there are services
like Fastmail.fm which only provide IMAP for free accounts. Some ISPs put
limitations the use of their SMTP servers (e.g. for @external-domain address)

Please consider re-opening this RFE.

Prog.

Comment 7

[Karsten Düsterloh]

Current mail filtering practices increasingly lead to the problem that you might not be able to use your ISP's smarthost (chain) to deliver your mail, because some servers/IP nets/etc. somewhere along the way are blocked.

Directly delivering mail to the recipient's MX would help here.

Notes:
(1) This won't always help. Many ISPs block direct mail delivery from known
    dial-in IP nets.
(2) We won't need a new module for this. Direct delivery is just
    - grab MX(s) for target domain 
    - do SMTP on that MX(s) on port 25 without username/password
    See RfC 5321, chapter 5, for details.

Comment 9

[antti.rytsola]

I think this bug needs renaming. There's no need to receive email or other "server" features.
My proposal is something on the lines of Use MX servers for email delivery.

The requirement is to

1. add an option to email account settings to send via MX records
2. lookup the smallest MX server for the recipient email address and use that as the SMTP server.

Additional features would be

1. fallback to other MX servers in rising order
2. Use outbox feature in case some SMTP servers need multiple contacts before delivery.

Further features

1. support for TLS or other optional SMTP security

The drawback is, as noted by Karsten in (1), some recipient addresses might be undeliverable.

Comment 10

[antti.rytsola]

The need for this feature rises as not all ISPs offer SMTP functionality for outbound delivery.

This is partly due to advocating use of gmail.

The other use case is that often there are multiple routes to internet and multiple locations for laptops and ISP anonymous SMTP servers are generally of low usability.

There's a workaround to install local SMTP server.

Comment 11

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Can we foresee ever likely wanting to invest in this?

Comment 12

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

No. I don't think servers in general would deliver mails this way these days (to junk if at all).