By sangersteel
I’m trying to set up an email server. I can’t seem to get port 25 to open for me. I literally just did:
ufw disable
ufw reset
ufw default deny incoming
ufw default allow outgoing
sudo ufw allow 22/tcp
sudo ufw allow 25
And then sudo ufw status verbose…
Status: active
Logging: on (low)
Default: deny (incoming), allow (outgoing), disabled (routed)
New profiles: skip
To Action From
-- ------ ----
22/tcp ALLOW IN Anywhere
25 ALLOW IN Anywhere
22/tcp (v6) ALLOW IN Anywhere (v6)
25 (v6) ALLOW IN Anywhere (v6)
However, one cursory glance of sudo netstat -tulpn | grep LISTEN and…
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.53:53 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 512/systemd-resolve
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:22 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 664/sshd: /usr/sbin
tcp6 0 0 :::22 :::* LISTEN 664/sshd: /usr/sbin
and telnet [my server IP] 25:
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused
What gives? How can I open up my ports?
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My guess is Postfix isn’t configured or running. Disable UFW and see if Postfix starts working. If it doesn’t, it’s probably not configured correctly or the service isn’t running. I doubt it is a UFW problem.
Hello all,
It is possible that port 25 is closed for new accounts. This is something DigitalOcean has been doing to reduce spam on the network.
To qualify for the ability to send out emails, new accounts are required to wait 60 days before a request for removing the restriction could be raised. Once your account has reached 60 days of stable use, you could reach out to the DigitalOcean support team so they could look into this for you:
In the meantime, you could instead use ports 465 or 587.
Hope that helps! Regards, Alex
Hi there,
SMTP port 25 is blocked on all Droplets for new accounts to prevent spam and other abuses of our platform.
Even if SMTP were available, DigitalOcean strongly recommends against running your own mail server in favor of using a dedicated email deliverability platform. Dedicated email deliverability platforms are better at handling deliverability factors like IP reputation.
To send mail from DigitalOcean, they recommend using SendGrid.
You could also use port 587 or 465 instead.
Source: https://docs.digitalocean.com/support/why-is-smtp-blocked/
- Bobby.
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