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    Email Client times out trying to reach mailserver in lan

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Firewalling
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    • T
      TomNick
      last edited by

      Hi everybody, I an trying to reach my mailserver with a client in Windows Server and it times out.

      My setup:
      Proxmox with pfsense, mailcow and Windows Server. All in lan 192.168.21.0/24. All nodes are running fine. I can reach mailcow from outside my lan through NAT at my maildomain from any client but not from my Windows Server Mail client.

      brave_screenshot1.png

      What ports for Windows do I still have to open? Thanks for some help!

      V GertjanG 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • V
        viragomann @TomNick
        last edited by

        @TomNick said in Email Client times out trying to reach mailserver in lan:

        Proxmox with pfsense, mailcow and Windows Server. All in lan 192.168.21.0/24.

        So I don't expect the access even to pass pfSense.

        Maybe a TLS problem? Does your mailcow provide TLS (STARTTLS)? Maybe the Windows client doesn't trust it.

        T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • GertjanG
          Gertjan @TomNick
          last edited by Gertjan

          @TomNick said in Email Client times out trying to reach mailserver in lan:

          All in lan 192.168.21.0/24.

          You mean then cow, the mail server and the client are all in that same network ?
          Then none of the traffic flows through pfSense. Better : the traffic never reaches pfSense.

          So, it's a VM-network setup issue.

          Your pfSense rules, for if the traffic reached the LAN interface as is has to leave the LAN network :

          5462826e-bc10-4d02-8f42-40c9d04f46a9-image.png

          The first line (disregard the anti lockout rule) will pass/accept all IPv4 traffic.
          The next line will do the same thing for the IPv6 traffic - but there was none.
          The third line will pass IPv4 traffic (remember ::m was already accept two lines above) and it must also be : TCP - and a have a destination that matches the alias and matches destination port 25.
          But all these extra conditions are a big don't care.
          Your first rule took already care of this traffic.

          Btw : remember : rules are applied / tested from TOP to BOTTOM.
          And the hidden last rules is : "block everything".

          No "help me" PM's please. Use the forum, the community will thank you.
          Edit : and where are the logs ??

          T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • T
            TomNick @viragomann
            last edited by

            @viragomann said in Email Client times out trying to reach mailserver in lan:

            Maybe a TLS problem? Does your mailcow provide TLS (STARTTLS)? Maybe the Windows client doesn't trust it.

            It is SSl/TLS 993 and 465. I tried with 2 clients (Windows) Thunderbird and Outlook. None of them worked. I even set the mail up from scratch and did not work. So what I found out now is that the client is getting the pfsense cert and not the mailserver cert. How can that be?

            V GertjanG 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • T
              TomNick @Gertjan
              last edited by

              @Gertjan The pfsense has vmbr0 WAN and vmbr1 lan (192.168.21.0). So all the VMs are behind the pfsense. The mailcow is reachable by the pfsenses WAN routed to the lan. Eg. 192.168.21.7. This configuration is running like a charm outside the lan

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              • V
                viragomann @TomNick
                last edited by

                @TomNick said in Email Client times out trying to reach mailserver in lan:

                So what I found out now is that the client is getting the pfsense cert and not the mailserver cert. How can that be?

                I don't expect this, since no packet form the client to the server should go to pfSense.
                Maybe we get closer, however, if you give some details about your network.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • GertjanG
                  Gertjan @TomNick
                  last edited by

                  @TomNick said in Email Client times out trying to reach mailserver in lan:

                  It is SSl/TLS 993 and 465. I tried with 2 clients (Windows) Thunderbird and Outlook. None of them worked.

                  They connect to what IP ?
                  The one of the mail server ?

                  Where are your client ? On the pfSense WAN ? Show your NAT rule(s) and related firewall rules.

                  No "help me" PM's please. Use the forum, the community will thank you.
                  Edit : and where are the logs ??

                  T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • T
                    TomNick @Gertjan
                    last edited by TomNick

                    @Gertjan said in Email Client times out trying to reach mailserver in lan:

                    They connect to what IP ?
                    The one of the mail server ?

                    Where are your client ? On the pfSense WAN ? Show your NAT rule(s) and related firewall rules.

                    @viragomann said in Email Client times out trying to reach mailserver in lan:

                    Maybe we get closer, however, if you give some details about your network.

                    Ok, WAN IP 37.27.xx.xx.xxx which is mail.mydomain goes to pfsense
                    NAT is:

                    brave_screenshot1.png

                    The aliases are:

                    brave_screenshot2.png

                    The Windows Server is 192.168.21.103 and not able to connect via a client on that Windows server

                    Pfsense is 192.168.21.100

                    V GertjanG 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • V
                      viragomann @TomNick
                      last edited by

                      @TomNick
                      What give us concerns is that client and server are within the same subnet. So access from client to server should not pass pfSense at all.

                      But just got an idea. I guess, your client uses your public FQDN?
                      This would explain, why packets go to pfSense.

                      If so, you should add an host override for the FQDN to your local DNS. Assuming, you're using DNS Resolver on pfSense.
                      Otherwise you can enable NAT reflection in the port forwarding rule.

                      T 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • T
                        TomNick @viragomann
                        last edited by

                        This post is deleted!
                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • T
                          TomNick @viragomann
                          last edited by

                          @viragomann said in Email Client times out trying to reach mailserver in lan:

                          If so, you should add an host override for the FQDN to your local DNS. Assuming, you're using DNS Resolver on pfSense.
                          Otherwise you can enable NAT reflection in the port forwarding rule.

                          I tried all but no sucess. Maybe I did something wrong with the host override, here it is:

                          brave_screenshot3.png

                          V 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • V
                            viragomann @TomNick
                            last edited by

                            @TomNick
                            Possibly the public IP is still present in the clients DNS cache.
                            Try to flush it (ipconfig /flushdns) or reboot the machine.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • GertjanG
                              Gertjan @TomNick
                              last edited by

                              @TomNick

                              The NAT rules.

                              463830d7-da64-411e-9a83-f5dad9c5e34e-image.png

                              I still like to see the WAN firewall rules.
                              The (WAN) firewall rules contains packet counters, like these :

                              5a98ea6a-7e83-4287-a956-c27917456c63-image.png

                              so you can see right away if there was traffic from the Internet coming into the WAN interfaces that matches one of your WAN pass rules - these rules can be part of a NAT rule - as my third WAN firewall rule, as it NATs to a port on my syno disk-station, which is a pfSense LAN device.

                              So, again : your firewall rules ?

                              The port alias contains :

                              25,465, etc

                              So your the first NAT rules 'NATs' port 25.
                              Your third rules isn't needed and should be removed.

                              No "help me" PM's please. Use the forum, the community will thank you.
                              Edit : and where are the logs ??

                              T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • T
                                TomNick @Gertjan
                                last edited by TomNick

                                @Gertjan said in Email Client times out trying to reach mailserver in lan:

                                So, again : your firewall rules ?

                                brave_screenshot.png

                                @Gertjan said in Email Client times out trying to reach mailserver in lan:

                                So your the first NAT rules 'NATs' port 25.
                                Your third rules isn't needed and should be removed.

                                Done!

                                Ok, what I found out is, that if you call mail.mydomain from inside the windows client you get the pfsense cert. If you call mail.mydomain from outside your will get the letsencrypt cert which is correct.

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                                • V
                                  viragomann @TomNick
                                  last edited by

                                  @TomNick
                                  The only possible reason for this is that your client resolves the host name to the public FQDN as already mentioned yesterday.

                                  If you're not able to get your local DNS to work properly, edit the port forwarding rule for the mailserver ports and enable NAT reflection.

                                  T 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                  • T
                                    TomNick @viragomann
                                    last edited by

                                    @viragomann said in Email Client times out trying to reach mailserver in lan:

                                    If you're not able to get your local DNS to work properly, edit the port forwarding rule for the mailserver ports and enable NAT reflection.

                                    It is already enabled I guess. The NAT reflection gives me 4 options:

                                    default
                                    NAT+Proxy
                                    Pure NAT
                                    Disable
                                    

                                    Mine is on default, still not working

                                    V 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • T
                                      TomNick @viragomann
                                      last edited by

                                      @viragomann 'It is working by setting "host override". Thanks a lot for your trouble and have a good weekend

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                                      • V
                                        viragomann @TomNick
                                        last edited by

                                        @TomNick said in Email Client times out trying to reach mailserver in lan:

                                        Mine is on default, still not working

                                        "default" means "System default". If this is set in the NAT rule, the setting in System > Advanced > Firewall & NAT > NAT Reflection mode for port forwards is used.

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