Why do so few mail providers support Port 587?

Thu Feb 24 22:16:14 UTC 2005

On Thu, Feb 24, 2005 at 04:51:50PM -0500, andrew2 at one.net wrote:

> There seem to be many who feel there is no overwhelming reason to
> support 587.  I can certainly see that point of view, but I guess my
> question is what reasons do those of you with that viewpoint have *not*
> to implement it?  I just don't see the harm in either configuring your

Oh thats easy: It creates costs (for implementing it
on the servers and clients) and produces no benefit.

> MTA to listen on an extra port, or just forward port 587 to 25 at the
> network level.  Other than a few man-hours for implementation what are
> the added costs/risks that make you so reluctant?  What am I missing?

You are missing the operational costs (has to be included in the regular
failover tests, has to be monitored, has to be fixed if something breaks
etc.)

Any system I introduce is increasing risks and costs. If there is
no benefit to justify these, I won't do it.

Nils