Trying to get Joomla to send an email to an address when someone submits a form (the idea being we can get anonymous feedback). Wanted to set up smtp with gmail but the ports I've been suggested to use aren't open. Not sure how easy this is going to be given the way things are set up at work. Is it possible to detect which ports are open? Tried grc/shieldsup and they said they were unable to reverse dns me.

Are you trying to send SMTP on port 25 out from your intranet server to gmail?
If so, getting yourself scanned by grc only tells you about inbound stuff.

Most firewalls have a rule for outbound smtp that allows it to be sent by one or two dedicated mail servers only. You'll need to get your sending host added to the permit for that.

Generally true. I don't know what port you're trying, but 25 is generally blocked - it used to be the case that a lot of viruses had their own inbuilt SMTP engine and would try to send email out through that port as a means of propagation. If GMail say they are listening on 587 or 465, you might want to try those as an alternative. Technically, 465 is deprecated but a lot of servers still listen on it.

As SW says, you shoud investigate if your ISP has an SMTP relay they expect you to use - if they do, pretty much any standard SMTP port Gmail might be listening on is likely to be locked down so you can't access it directly.

Ah! Makes sense!


How would I find out about the rule? There are some computers that have been set up with outlook 2007, but I have to use the webmail version of the NHS email service because outlook won't work.


Tried both, with no success.

Remember, this is the surgery's computers so hardware and set up is dictacted by them - if there are any problems, we have to contact the PCT which may take 24-48 hours minimum for them to come down and investigate.

If you're sending mail then you're sending from a random port number to port 25 at the other end.
Most firewalls allow these ports out so no config is needed on the firewall as you're only sending & not receiving.

This might be useful

http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f ... &start=210

Your network sounds like a bit of a mare. If traffic to port 25 is permitted outbound you can put this line into the cmd in windows to test it:
telnet cluster4.eu.messagelabs.com 25

If you get a message like this: 220 server-2.tower-182.messagelabs.com ESMTP
That means SMTP is allowed outbound.

If you get: Connecting To cluster4.eu.messagelabs.com...Could not open connection to the host, on port 25: Connect failed
SMTP is blocked

If you get something about unrecognised commands, you need to turn telnet on.
Enable telnet by going to control panel > windows features > then tick the telnet client

To check any other outbound port, use the address of a server you know definitely listens on that port, and cut the 25 off the end of that line and put in whatever number you need. This is a very basic way of testing a given port - it doesn't work at all for UDP ports, and sometimes you get odd results. But for mail service testing it should be fine for you.