In this changelog Linode says they are blocking outbound email ports. We can receive but not send.
I asked them if there are ways to unblock them, or if I should move on
Even if they have a way to manually request and unlock it, it means more steps for making the email work.
My question is: should Linode be removed from the guide as a suggestion? Or at least add a note?
No. This is acceptable behavior for an ISP.
For ISPs to provide competitive pricing, they must be allowed to take reasonable steps to protect themselves, which includes IP address reputation.
One easy way for them to protect themselves is to require a manual audit of each request to send email from any given server, as they daily have to contend with customers intentionally sending spam as well as customers running insecure configurations that end up being compromised and sending spam.
No point recommending them to new users if they block port 25 as a matter of course though don’t you think? Just adds a barrier to ease of setup.
However, is it their policy everywhere? I had seen similar comments about Digital Ocean but my London VPS had no such problems.
New users will have a much worse time dealing with bad IP address reputation.
I use Linode and had to open a support ticket to get the ports unblocked. Their staff were very helpful and quick, and I think they also confirm that your rDNS is set up correctly which is useful. I see your point, but it wasn’t much of a barrier to me.
A note in the guide might be useful, but it does also tell you in the Linode Manager when you try and create a new Linode.
Indeed their support was helpful.
I just regret the time I wasted looking for solution where I shouldn’t, when the problem was actually outside the box.
A note saying that you may need to contact support would have prevent that.
Interestingly, I was able to open a similar support ticket with AWS to unblock the appropriate ports and get rDNS set up. Although it was a bit more work than perhaps it would be to use a provider that doesn’t enforce these restrictions, it also wasn’t much of a barrier (and I was able to take advantage of the “Free Tier” AWS offers).
Digital Ocean should not be recommended for sure lots of ISP like (spectrum.com ) are blocking DO entire network and all the domains they manage will not accept email coming from DO IP addresses, and there is no way to get them to fix that.
Just be glad spectrum isn’t your isp.
The segment of cable I am on isn’t showing significant errors in the modems web page, but it looses connection to the cloud multiple times every day.
Spectrum doesn’t actually block port 25, but they have registered their ip ranges with blacklists. It’s a soft ban on email servers on their residential cable system.
Lousy.
5G broadband will eat their lunch.
Dennis
The problem with them is not about what they are blocking, but rather what they are accepting in. Basically, if your MIAB is on DigitalOcean, spectrum.com will not accept any email to any of their customers coming from any DO IP address.
“If you choose Digital Ocean, your machine is called a “droplet” and you must name your droplet the same as its hostname.”
Maybe people should be made aware in the guide that Digital Ocean has limitation as there IP range is being blocked by a few other providers.
Maybe they don’t just block DO, they block huge range of IPs and even countries. For example, I cannot access spectrum.com website from Asia.
Akamai Linode does not block port 25 or port 587 for new users. I am living proof of this as I signed up for a brand new Akamai Linode account on 24th March 2024 and got $100 free credit. However, a new user must not sign up through an anonymous VPN or an anonymous proxy or Tor, else Linode’s anti fraud mechanism will be activated. Always, keep a valid payment mechanism like PayPal. The Linode that I rented was $12 per month with 2GB RAM and 50GB storage.
As a satisfied customer of Linode, I will give Akamai a 5 star rating as it is and will always be the best cloud hosting provider.
