Question

Cannot connect to Postfix on port 587

Hi there,

I have installed Postfix on a droplet, and configured it to work on ports 25 and 587.

I’m unable to make a connection remotely.

If I do the following from the droplet itself:

> telnet localhost 587

I get a reply from Postfix.

However if from my either my local system or the droplet itself I do:

> telnet server.domain.com 587

I get:

Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused

I have read that DigitalOcean often block ports 25 and 587 by default, but I have contacted support and been assured by multiple agents that they are not blocking those ports on our droplet.

Is there anything else I can try?

Thanks,


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Bobby Iliev
Site Moderator
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January 30, 2020
Accepted Answer

Hello,

This sounds like that you might have a firewall on your Droplet. If this is the case you need to open port 587 for incoming and outgoing TCP connections, for example if you are using Ubuntu and if you have UFW enabled, you could open the 587 port with this command:

sudo ufw allow 587/tcp

Also, check the if Postfix is binding correctly on 0.0.0.0:

  1. netstat -plant | grep 587

Output:

tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:587     0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      1161/postfix

Let me know how it goes! Regards, Bobby

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