Why do so few mail providers support Port 587?

Wed Feb 16 13:43:59 UTC 2005

Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:

>On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 09:00:11PM -0500, Sean Donelan wrote:
>  
>
>>Sendmail now includes Port 587, although some people disagree how
>>its done.  But Exchange and other mail servers are still difficult
>>for system administrators to configure Port 587 (if it doesn't say
>>click here for Port 587 during the Windows installer, its too
>>complicated).
>>    
>>
>
>This is utterly silly.  Running another full-access copy of the MTA
>on a different port than 25 achieves precisely nothing
>  
>
I think we have ignored/trivialized the obvious.

Port 587 gives you the ability to class your connections as either 
MTA<->MTA, Legacy User->MTA, MSP User ->MTA.

This is quite valuable as you now have the theoretical ability treat 
them differently. Whether that means different 
access/authentication/encryption/firewall/relay policies or whatever.

If all one does is run a full copy on that port then *THEY* have gained 
almost nothing in practice, aside from further un-exploited 
capabilities. However we all gain from ever increasing, even if it is 
only incremental, support of well known RFC's.

Specific MTA discussions aside, port 587 is a good thing, and the more 
of it the merrier.