Avatar of brislane
brislane
Flag for Ireland asked on

No 220 response to telnet on port 25 from certain servers, works fine from others

Hi there,

I'm trying to remotely troubleshoot a problem with an Exchange server (2003) receiving email.

From some machines, telnet to the server works fine, as below:

~ > telnet mail1.server.com 25
Trying 1.2.3.4...
Connected to mail1.server.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mail1.server.local Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service, Version: 6.0.3790.3959 ready at  Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:47:25 +0100

From other servers, it connects, but doesn't respond with the 220, unless some data is sent (pressing enter, or sending a HELO command) - obviously a server isn't going to do this autommatically.

~ > telnet mail1.server.com 25
Trying 1.2.3.4...
Connected to mail1.server.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
------- just sits here -------
------- if you press enter you get the 220 response -------
220 mail1.server.local Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service, Version: 6.0.3790.3959 ready at  Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:57:32 +0100

Anyone have any ideas?
Exchange

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Last Comment
dlongan

8/22/2022 - Mon
dlongan

Banner response can also be slow if the Exchange Server computer is querying a DNS server that is slow to respond.
How long have you waited before pressing "enter"
Other ideas:
Slow banner response can be caused by any of the following reasons:
" A firewall or packet filtering software is delaying the banner response. In this case, you should perform telnet tests from both sides of all routers to measure the differences in banner response times.
" If SMTP protocol logging is enabled, reverse-DNS lookups are performed on each incoming connection. This functionality affects computer performance.  
brislane

ASKER
It seems to wait forever to send a 220. I have noticed that the longer I wait, the more times I have to press enter to get the banner to appear....
Sembee

If the cursor just sits there then something is blocking port 25. If you were using some kind of antispam tool then I would expect to see a delay from all locations.

Simon.
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rwheeler23
brislane

ASKER
But it connects, so there's nothing blocking 25 !
brislane

ASKER
But it connects, so there's nothing blocking 25 !
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
dlongan

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