Many email servers are only accepting traffic over secure transports. Old i5/OS cannot handle the newer encryption methods. I am not sure if the IBM SMTP Client / Server will handle secure transports at all. ( I see you can configure SSL/TLS on 7.2 when you use authentication.) Don't know how far back that goes. We here block outbound port 25 from everything except our Exchange server, and then it can only send through to our DMZ were we have a mail gateway. This mail gateway act as an inbound filter as well as provides outbound encryption and Data Loss Prevention. You cannot email out SSN #, Credit Card, or Check MICR numbers. As well as a few other rules. For that reason we use the mail relay to send everything through our mail proxy.
But if you set up your iSeries to send mail and have a valid MX record for it in public DNS with reverse DNS, you can send to most email servers out there.
So it is really up to the end admin as to how they want to secure their outbound email.
Chris Bipes
Director of Information Services
CrossCheck, Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Nathan Andelin
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2017 2:00 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Email direct from IBM i without relay (was: New lower cost IBMi announced)
I don't understand.
The subject of how email works, and especially the jargon can be confusing.
I'll delineate a few basics and let others fill in with more detail. Say
you want to send an email to:
john@xxxxxxxxxxx
Setting all formatting aside (for the moment, in order to focus on
communication), a program or services needs to use a TCP socket to connect
to the SMTP server on port 25 at example.com, send the message, then
disconnect. IBM i has an SMTP client that can do that for you.
It appears to me that the vendors in this space are recommending
alternatives, which include "relaying" mail to intermediate servers. Relay
servers typically require authentication, and may require encryption. Brad
apparently offers an interface that handles that.
That still begs the question, why use a relay service at all? IBM i can
send email directly.
midrange.com
