SMTP greeting 220 *********

OS: Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4 (Nahant Update 4)
Qmail ver: qmail-1.03


Geeks,
I have installed Qmail on two of the production servers. The qmail
installation was done by following steps in the website
http://www.qmailrocks.org/

Installation went fine, but the problem that I am getting is with 220
SMTP greeting. When I telnet from a "other then qmail" servers in the
same local network I get the SMTP greeting fine as shown below:

$ telnet mail.ztfse.com 25
Trying a.b.c.d...
Connected to mail.mydomain.com (a.b.c.d).
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mail.mydomain.com ESMTP
^]
telnet> quit
Connection closed.
$

but whenever I telent from a server in the remote network. I get
following SMTP greeting.

$ telnet mail.mydomain.com 25
Trying a.b.c.d...
Connected to mail.mydomain.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 ********************
quit
221 mail.mydomain.com
Connection closed by foreign host.
$

please *NOTICE* the ********** characters in the greeting.

This error is unanimous for both the Qmail servers lying in same
network. I googled thoroughly but found no clue as to what's happening.
In the website http://www.qmailrocks.org/ they provide a script which
checks the sanity of the installation once completed. I executed that
script and it say "your qmail installation looks good. Congrats!." So I
don't think this could be and installation issues. I am stumped :(

Please help me out resolving this issue we have roll into production
ASAP. could this be a network problem?? As we do have some issues with
network in which Qmail servers lie.

thanks

"Opesh Alkara" <opeshalkara@gmail.com> writes:

> but whenever I telent from a server in the remote network. I get
> following SMTP greeting.
>
> $ telnet mail.mydomain.com 25
> Trying a.b.c.d...
> Connected to mail.mydomain.com.
> Escape character is '^]'.
> 220 ********************
> quit
> 221 mail.mydomain.com
> Connection closed by foreign host.
> $
>
> please *NOTICE* the ********** characters in the greeting.

Classic symptom of a Cisco PIX firewall.

--
Dave Sill Oak Ridge National Lab, Workstation Support
Author, The qmail Handbook <http://web.infoave.net/~dsill>
<http://lifewithqmail.org/>: Almost everything you always wanted to know.

Dave Sill wrote:
> "Opesh Alkara" <opeshalkara@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > but whenever I telent from a server in the remote network. I get
> > following SMTP greeting.
> >
> > $ telnet mail.mydomain.com 25
> > Trying a.b.c.d...
> > Connected to mail.mydomain.com.
> > Escape character is '^]'.
> > 220 ********************
> > quit
> > 221 mail.mydomain.com
> > Connection closed by foreign host.
> > $
> >
> > please *NOTICE* the ********** characters in the greeting.
>
> Classic symptom of a Cisco PIX firewall.

I too suspected firewall issue, but the firewall being used here in
qmail network is Verisign.....Which is not under our control....but
under control of thrid party data center guys......

Any ideas...what's the motive behind blocking 220 SMTP greetings??

Thanks

>
> --
> Dave Sill Oak Ridge National Lab, Workstation Support
> Author, The qmail Handbook <http://web.infoave.net/~dsill>
> <http://lifewithqmail.org/>: Almost everything you always wanted to know.

Opesh Alkara wrote:

> Dave Sill wrote:
>
>>"Opesh Alkara" <opeshalkara@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>
>>>but whenever I telent from a server in the remote network. I get
>>>following SMTP greeting.
>>>
>>>$ telnet mail.mydomain.com 25
>>>Trying a.b.c.d...
>>>Connected to mail.mydomain.com.
>>>Escape character is '^]'.
>>>220 ********************
>>>quit
>>>221 mail.mydomain.com
>>>Connection closed by foreign host.
>>>$
>>>
>>>please *NOTICE* the ********** characters in the greeting.
>>
>>Classic symptom of a Cisco PIX firewall.
>
>
> I too suspected firewall issue, but the firewall being used here in
> qmail network is Verisign.....Which is not under our control....but
> under control of thrid party data center guys......
>
> Any ideas...what's the motive behind blocking 220 SMTP greetings??
>
> Thanks
>
>
>>--
>>Dave Sill Oak Ridge National Lab, Workstation Support
>>Author, The qmail Handbook <http://web.infoave.net/~dsill>
>><http://lifewithqmail.org/>: Almost everything you always wanted to know.
>
>

It is not blocking, I suspect it is a proxying connection.i.e. the
firewall does smtp proxying. It also limits the ability of a potential
hacker to know what type of server is behind it and thus has the
illusion that this make it harder to attack.

AK