How to use "formmail" from our webserver in the DMZ

smtp mail problem from a web server in the DMZ

[tony]

I am trying to use the popular ASP formmail code to send forms data via email from our website. We have our own Win 2000 webserver in the DMZ of our system. We set the smtpServer in formmail to be the IP address of our firewall but no email is ever received back when we test our forms.

Any advice on what to check or what we may be missing would be appreciated? The code works fine on a standalone windows 2000 server with a software firewall.

[bakedjake]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, tony!

We set the smtpServer in formmail to be the IP address of our firewall

Is your firewall running an SMTP server? If not, this setting won't work.

[tony]

Hi bakedJake

I haven't been able to find out yet - but if it doesn't (and I suspect this may be the case), can I use the IP address of a machine with an smtpServer on the other side of the firewall and expect the firewall to filter the message through to it? Is it safe to assume the web server, DMZ and firewall are on the same subnet and that all messages from the web server are routed through the firewall acting as a gateway?

tony

[bakedjake]

Is it safe to assume the web server, DMZ and firewall are on the same subnet and that all messages from the web server are routed through the firewall acting as a gateway?

I'm not sure. You can easily tell by checking the network settings of all three, though.

One way you can tell what will pass is to try and issue the following command at a prompt on your webserver:

telnet my.smtpserver.com 25

Where my.smtpserver.com = the address/name of your smtp server. If that works, you can pretty much assume that it will be safe to set your smtpserver variable to your normal SMTP server, assuming there is no sort of authentication scheme being employed on the SMTP server.