Bulrush's questions

Can I put this question on hold? I need to install an Xwindows client on the new PC first. That might be the problem. It's been years since I've done something like this.

• Client (the new PC) is Windows 10 running putty v0.73. I use ssh to log into Ubuntu 18.04 LTS using Putty.
• Due to the weird configuration, and me working at home from quarantine, I only have access to the shell, not a GUI for Ubuntu.
• I've tried to connect to Ubuntu and I can enter my username and password but then nothing else happens. No error message or anything.
• I set up putty to send Xterm to the new PC's IP address, which is, let's say, 10.1.1.11.
• I also set up the DISPLAY variable in putty for the new PC, which contains 10.1.1.11. I set it up just like my old PC.
• Connecting using Putty from my old PC, with a different IP, say 10.1.1.10, works fine. Ignore the fact that these are made up IPs.
• I'm not a sysadmin and I'm all on my own for this one.
• I looked at my older questions from 2014 but all my questions from before 2016 were deleted from this site, so that's no help.

My question is, I think I have to allow this new IP on the new PC at the ubuntu level. In my /etc/hosts.allow file I already have ALL:10.1.*.* which should allow all IPs that start with 10.1, right?

Do I also have to add the new PC IP for some xterm file? I need Xwindows and nedit supported and I don't know which config files to edit.

I use ufw for the firewall, do I have to edit some config file for that too to allow the new IP through?

But it no worky. Any ideas what I should check on the ubuntu side?

Thank you so much for your help.

• I'm using Ubuntu 18.04 and Alpine 2.21. I opened a terminal to Ubuntu shell via Putty.
• I have root access via sudo.
• I tried a perl script called mbox-purge.pl from 2017 (which worked then) to purge 1000s of emails before March 3, 2020 but I'm missing a Perl module called RS::Handy and I cannot find a .tar.gz file to download and install RS::Handy so mbox-purge.pl doesn't work. And RS::Handy is not part of cpan currently, i.e. cpanm cannot find it.
• Email errors are the result of a cron job that runs every 10 minutes.
• My emails seem to be stored in a single file in /var/spool/USERNAME.
• I got nothing after searching Askubuntu or googling.

How do I delete all these extra cron job errors from my email?

Thank you.

• Ubuntu 14.04LTS server, I have no GUI desktop
• In my example I'll use a fake IP address.
• Trying to mount from Ubuntu to \1.2.3.4\users\me\subdir. Someone has to put a spreadsheet file on the \1.2.3.4\users\me\subdir and my program on Ubuntu has to read it.
• I can ping 1.2.3.4 just fine, so it can't be a firewall issue, right?

I have read about 12 pages from my goole search, a few from this forum but I have nothing that works yet. This is what I did.

sudo mount -t cifs '\\1.2.3.4/users/shared/chuck/subdir' /home/comp/mnt/subdir -o username=chuck,password=CR4gilson 
mount error(115): Operation now in progress
Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g. man mount.cifs)

This message is in /var/log/syslog:

Feb 15 09:43:56 ubuntucomp kernel: [7519048.289580] CIFS VFS: Error connecting to socket. Aborting operation.
Feb 15 09:43:56 ubuntucomp kernel: [7519048.289872] CIFS VFS: cifs_mount failed w/return code = -115

In my ufw output samba seems to be allowed anywhere:

Samba                      ALLOW       Anywhere

Thank you!

I'm running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

Sometimes I use the at command to run a Bash script one time like this:

at -f goscript 8:00pm

(Execs need me to run a report at a time not in crontab.)

Is that the correct syntax? Or do I need at -f /path/to/goscript 8:00pm?

Does at require the full path to the filename like cron does? If my script is in /path/to/goscript will the above command run correctly? Assuming the first line of goscript is #!/bin/bash.

I did find this from man at:

"The working directory, the environment (except for the variables BASH_VERSINFO, DISPLAY, EUID, GROUPS, SHELLOPTS, TERM, UID, and _) and the umask are retained from the time of invocation."

I have a server with Ubuntu 14.04LTS. I am sending email from Ubuntu to email.test.com and then to my Windows PC account with Outlook, but I changed the domain for this post to test.com. The email sends and I have no errors in my SMTP log but the emails are not getting to my PC account.

I can ping email.test.com but that only tells me the physical machine is running. How can I tell if the email server is running if there are no errors in my SMTP log?

Thank you.

I want to replace Win XP on a computer with Ubuntu. Do I have to buy a domain name to get email to send/receive and get internet working? Because on my Ubuntu 14.04 at work, I had to buy a domain name to get a Mail Transfer Agent to receive and send email. I"m not sure if an email client (not the same as an MTA) has the same requirements.

(At work I got around this with a Perl program which talks directly to the SMTP server, because I only needed to send emails. On my old Win XP PC I need to run a regular email client to send and receive emails.)

Also, is it possible to use a dynamic IP with Ubuntu with an ISP like Comcast? If so, how would I set it up?

Thank you.

• I normally don't have to do much with setting up Ubuntu email, so I'm basically a beginner at it, please be kind.
• I have Sendemail 1.56 by Brandon Sehm on Ubuntu 14.04.02LTS. The Ubuntu machine name is "ubuntucomp.net". Sendemail is the only mail package that doesn't require an MTA and full registered domain address. My VM Ubuntu machine does not have a registered domain because I only want to send email within our local network.
• Email is outgoing only from ubuntu.net. There is no need to receive email.
• I use Sendemail from the command line to send emails with attachments, which are backups of Perl files. Backups are run by cron and the job backs up files and emails them to my work address, [email protected], within our network.
• smtp.mywork.com uses a non standard port, 2500, which I specify on the sendemail command line: sendemail -f [email protected] -t [email protected] -u "Perl test ubuntu backups $zipfile" -s smtp.mywork.com:2500 -l $basedir/smtp.log -S /usr/sbin/sendmail -a $zipfile < $basedir/mailbody.txt
• Sendemail seems to use /usr/sbin/sendmail.
• The new smtp server Sendemail does not work with is smtp.mywork.com. It requires no username and no password for authentication, but the From: address must be "[email protected]".
• I will never have admin access to smtp.mywork.com, and no one else does either. So let's not go there. I have to work around this. I know it's silly, but there's nothing I can do about that.
• Also, the new smtp.mywork.com works fine with my other perl programs running on this same machine, but not with sendemail from the command line.

Sendemail worked fine with one Godaddy server, but now I have to change servers to use one in our own network, call it smtp.mywork.com, set up by someone else. Also, the new smtp.mywork.com works fine with my other perl programs, but not with sendemail. I've double checked the man pages, googled for answers, but found nothing helpful.

The original message was received at Thu, 6 Aug 2015 13:49:44 -0400
from localhost [127.0.0.1]

   ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<[email protected]>
    (reason: 550 relay not permitted)

   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to mywork.com.:
>>> DATA
<<< 550 relay not permitted
550 5.1.1 <[email protected]>... User unknown
<<< 503-All RCPT commands were rejected with this error:
<<< 503-relay not permitted
<<< 503 Valid RCPT command must precede DATA

[ Part 2: "Delivery Status" ]

Reporting-MTA: dns; ubuntucomp.net
Received-From-MTA: DNS; localhost
Arrival-Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2015 13:49:44 -0400

Final-Recipient: RFC822; [email protected]
Action: failed
Status: 5.1.1
Remote-MTA: DNS; mywork.com
Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 550 relay not permitted
Last-Attempt-Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2015 13:49:44 -0400
Return-Path: <[email protected]>
Received: from ubuntucomp.net (localhost [127.0.0.1])
        by ubuntucomp.net (8.14.4/8.14.4/Debian-4.1ubuntu1) with ESMTP id
t76Hni3S011456
        for <[email protected]>; Thu, 6 Aug 2015 13:49:44 -0400
Received: (from chuck@localhost)
        by ubuntucomp.net (8.14.4/8.14.4/Submit) id t76HniR9011455;
        Thu, 6 Aug 2015 13:49:44 -0400
Message-ID: <741542.889128567-sendEmail@ubuntucomp>
From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Subject: Perl prod ubuntu backups /home/comp/perl/backprod-ub20150806.zip
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2015 17:49:44 +0000
X-Mailer: sendEmail-1.56
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----MIME delimiter for
sendEmail-327729.490659298"

When I try to use Sendemail, Sendemail says email was sent, which it was, but then I immediately get back an error message, which is above. My questions.

1. Which software is sending me the email error? Is it from my Ubuntu machine? If so, what config files do I have to change so it works with smtp.mywork.com?
2. Does sendemail even read a config file on Ubuntu before it sends the email off the machine?
3. How do I fix this problem so Sendemail works?
4. Why does my error message also say 550 5.1.1 <[email protected]>... User unknown? Is that the root problem?

Thank you!

• Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS

From my Ubuntu machine I want to access an MS SQL 2005 server via ODBC. This MSSQL server is on our internal network. I've installed these packages: unixodbc, unixodbc-dev, unixodbc-bin, libodbc1, libtool, autotools-dev and several other dependencies. Also tdsodbc, freetds-bin, freetds-common, freetds-dev, libct4.

But I can't seem to find where the .so file is to use it in my DSN in /etc/odbc.ini. Which file do I use? Doing this: echo "select 1"|isql -v mydsn gives me this error:

[01000][unixODBC][Driver Manager]Can't open lib '/usr/lib/libtdsodbc.so' : file not found
[ISQL]ERROR: Could not SQLConnect

The 'mydsn' is trying to point to /usr/lib/libtdsodbc.so but it's not there. Which .so file do I set up in the /etc/odbc.ini file?

Thank you.

1. Virtual Machine: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS
2. I'm using putty to access Ubuntu from my Windows 7 PC.
3. This Ubuntu machine does not have a registered domain name.
4. Setting up a local SMTP server on this Ubuntu VM requires a full MTA which requires a registered domain name, which isn't going to happen.
5. On the Ubuntu VM I'm using the Google name servers of 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.
6. For old SMTPServer1, there is a limit if about 100 outgoing emails per day per account/username, and I'm the only one who uses this SMTP username and I don't generate 250 emails every day. I do about 25-30 max on certain days.
7. I'm using Perl 5.18.2 to talk directly to the SMTP server, so I don't need an MTA.
8. On my Ubuntu VM, doing nslookup email.abc.com gives me a non-authoritative IP address of the correct IP for the new SMTP server, which is, say 60.1.2.3.

This Ubuntu VM runs on our network and I've been making reports and sending outbound email only via SMTPServer1 for a while now. SMTPServer1 has poor service so I'm changing SMTP servers to an SMTP server internal to our network, something our company runs. When I try to test my connection from Ubuntu to the new SMTP server, I telnet in to the name like this: telnet email.abc.com 2525 because we use a non-standard port for SMTP.

What I get every time is "Trying email.abc.com..." and it just hangs there until I get a timeout error. The same thing happens when I try to telnet directly to the IP address. The other guy running the new (to me) SMTP server claims it's open for my IP of the Ubuntu server and his SMTP server is running.

1. First, what do I need to check? I'm on my own here, IT doesn't know anything about Ubuntu.
2. How do I set up my machine, and/or DNS, to access the new SMTP server? I already know how to set up my Perl program to do it, but my test is not working, hence my question.

Thank you!

EDIT: I just added our internal DNS servers to /etc/network/interfaces. The first 2 entries for dns-nameservers are 10.19.* and they are our internal DNS servers. The next 2 entries are Google DNS servers, the last is a OpenDNS server. It now looks like this:

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5). # The loopback network interface auto lo iface lo inet loopback # The primary network interface auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 10.19.3.13 netmask 255.255.0.0 gateway 10.19.0.1 dns-nameservers 10.19.1.66 10.19.1.67 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4 208.67.222.222 # See /home/chuck/perl/stuff/setiptable. pre-up iptables-restore < /etc/iptables/rules.v4

After the edit (using sudo nedit /etc/network/interfaces) I did: sudo service network-manager restart. I also edited sudo /etc/resolvconf/resolv.conf.d/base which now has our 2 internal DNS servers first, followed by 2 Google DNS servers, and it now looks like this:

nameserver 10.19.1.66 nameserver 10.19.1.67 nameserver 8.8.8.8 nameserver 8.8.4.4

After editing I did sudo resolvconf -u.

So then I did ping and nmap. Ping works. Nmap returns this. If someone could help me decipher the nmap output, then I can learn. I don't mind learning. But I'm new at this part. Everyone is at one point.

Starting Nmap 6.40 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2015-06-23 06:39 EDT Nmap scan report for email.abc.com (64.13.203.46) Host is up. rDNS record for 64.13.203.46: acmkokisco.gs01.gridserver.com PORT STATE SERVICE 2525/tcp filtered ms-v-worlds

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 2.12 seconds

If I'm doing nmap from my Ubuntu server to the SMTP server, why does it say "filtered"? Did the guy running the SMTP server not allow my Ubuntu IP correctly? I know when you make changes to Ubuntu you sometimes have to restart services. I wonder if he didn't restart the service correctly. I am trying to figure out what to tell him, i.e. if the problem is at my end or his.

Output of nslookup email.abc.com:

Server: 8.8.8.8 Address: 8.8.8.8#53

Non-authoritative answer: Name: email.abc.com Address: 64.13.203.46

Doesn't this mean it used the 8.8.8.8 (Google) DNS server to get the IP?

10.19.3.13 is the IP of my Ubuntu machine, and I'm trying to access the SMTP server from there. Output of tcptraceroute.

$ tcptraceroute email.abc.com 2525 Selected device eth0, address 10.19.3.13, port 57049 for outgoing packets Tracing the path to email.abc.com (64.13.203.46) on TCP port 2525, 30 hops max 1 * * * 2 * * * 3 * * * 4 * * * 5 * * * 6 * * * 7 * * * 8 * * * 9 * * * 10 * * * 11 * * * 12 * * * 13 * * * 14 * * * 15 * * * 16 * * * 17 * * * 18 * * * 19 * * * 20 * * * 21 * * * 22 * * * 23 * * * 24 * * * 25 * * * 26 * * * 27 * * * 28 * * * 29 * * * 30 * * * Destination not reached

Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS

How do I set the default scale for the bc calculator? Each time I run bc I want scale=2 to be the default, I want to limit all calculations to 2 decimal places. I made a file in my home dir called .bc and inside it I put scale=2 on the first line followed by a carriage return.

Permissions on ~/.bc are: -rw-rw-rw-. Is that right?

Then I did set BC_ENV_ARGS=~/.bc; export BC_ENV_ARGS. Then I ran bc, did a test like 8.37843*32.190233, and still got more than 2 decimal places.

The online manual did not provide any examples on doing this, so please don't direct me to there.

Thanks.

EDIT: Ok when I do a test like 78/31 it gives me 2 decimals. But when I do my test above, it gives me more than 2 decimals. Why is that? I always want to show only 2 decimals.

System:

• Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS
• Samba 4.1.6
• Client: Windows 7

I have a drive on Win 7 mapped to an Ubuntu Samba share. Sometimes when I create one or more new files in Ubuntu, I cannot see the new file for 5-10 minutes in the Windows file explorer. Doing Refresh in the File Explorer does not show the new files either. After 5-10 minutes the file explorer seems to do an auto refresh, but in order to do my work I really need to see the files and open them in windows now. (I need to use Excel on my client to open the files on Ubuntu.)

How do I fix this?

Is there a way to force samba to send a refresh signal to Windows? Because I can't seem to get Windows to refresh the Samba file share list at all.

I'm not real good at Windows networking so if you need more information let me know how to get it and I'll get it for you.

Thanks.

Pastebin is software that allows a person to save clips of code from many languages, or just text files, and share them with the public as read-only files. See pastebin.org.

• Ubuntu 14.04 running as a VM.
• Machine does not have a full registered domain name but has it's own IP address.
• I only want our company employees to access it from within our company via a browser, not from their homes.
• We want to do this to share private code within the company.
• Installing from Ubuntu repo preferred.
• I'd like syntax highlighting for Perl, SQL, and other languages.

Questions.

• Do I need to set up a web server for this to run on top of? Because I have never tested the web server part. Or will the pastebin software work by itself.
• I'd like to have multiple users. Each user can have the option to keep pastes forever, or expire them as they like.
• I'd like the option to limit number or size of pastes by user if storage space becomes an issue.

Ubuntu 14.04.1.

I have a bash script, called by cron every 10 minutes, which basically looks for files in a subdir, then loops through and process each file. But how do I check if there are no files found? If there are no files found I don't want to process them, and I don't want to get an email via cron that says "no files found", because cron runs every 10 minutes. That's 144 emails per day saying "no files found" that I don't want to get.

• The input/ dir is owned by me and has full rwx permissions.
• I've already guaranteed the files in input/ do not contain spaces, thanks to another answer on Ask Ubuntu.

Here's my basic script.

#!/bin/bash
# Cron requires a full path in $myfullpath
myfullpath=/home/comp/progdir
files=`ls $myfullpath/input/fedex*.xlsx`
# How do I check for no files found here and exit without generating a cron email?
for fullfile in $files
do

done

Thanks! I didn't even know what to google for this one.

EDIT: My script is now this:

#!/bin/bash
# Script: gocronloop, Feb 5, 2015
# Cron requires a full path to the file.
mydir=/home/comp/perl/gilson/jimv/fedex
cd $mydir/input
# First remove spaces from filesnames in input/
find -name "* *" -type f | rename 's/ /-/g'
cd $mydir
shopt -s nullglob
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
    echo "ERROR in shopt"
    exit 1
fi
for fullfile in "$mydir"/input/fedex*.xlsx
    do
    # First remove file extension to get full path and base filename.
    myfile=`echo "$fullfile"|cut -d'.' -f1`
    echo -e "\nDoing $myfile..."
    # Convert file from xlsx to xls.
    ssconvert $myfile.xlsx $myfile.xls
    # Now check status in $?
    if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
        echo "ERROR in ssconvert"
        exit 1
    fi
    perl $1 $mydir/fedex.pl -input:$mydir/$myfile.xls -progdir:$mydir 
    done

I'd like to have a time, say 6:45am, and add an amount of hours, say 1.45 hours, to result in another time. So I'd like to add 1.45 hours to 6:45am to get another time.

Is there a command line utile for that? I've done some Googling, and read the man page for date and haven't found anything like that. wcalc doesn't seem to handle time calculations.

EDIT: Mar 6, 2015. This is the script I ended up with to use decimal hours. It could use some error checking to make sure HH:MM uses 2 digits for the hours.

#!/bin/bash
# Mar 6, 2015
# Add decimal hours to given time. 
# Syntax: timeadd HH:MM HOURS
# There MUST be 2 digits for the hours in HH:MM.
# Times must be in military time. 
# Ex: timeadd 05:51 4.51
# Ex: timeadd 14:12 2.05
echo " "
# If we have less than 2 parameters, show instructions and exit.
if [ $# -lt 2 ]
then
    echo "Usage: timeadd HH:MM DECHOURS"
    exit 1
fi
intime=$1
inhours=$2
# Below is arithmetic expansion $(())
# The bc calculator is standard on Ubuntu. 
# Below rounds to the minute. 
inminutes=$(echo "scale=0; ((($inhours * 60)*10)+5)/10" | bc)
echo "inminutes=$inminutes"
now=$(date -d "$intime today + $inminutes minutes" +'%H:%M')
echo "New time is $now"

Ubuntu 14.04lts with Perl 5.18.2.

This is a special case where Google did not help me. I do not want to turn off email for all cron jobs, I have about 15 jobs in my crontab. I need to see the emails cron sends me if there are errors.

This one job is a special case for which I need a solution. I have a bash script in my crontab which calls a perl script which is setup to check for email every 5 minutes. (It is not possible for me to setup a full MTA.) If there is no email the script does not output anything to STDOUT or STDERR yet cron still sends me a blank email with the full path of the bash script in the subject.

1. I want cron and the Perl script to send me email if the perl script finds email and processes it, including if there are errors.
2. I don't want cron to send me a blank email if there is no output from the Perl script because no email was found. The script runs every 5 minutes.

Anyone have any ideas?

EDIT: Confirmed. It was a stray newline that was my problem. Problem solved. Cron does not send an email if there is no output. Thank you! Your comment helped.

Ubuntu 14.04

I have an email process that sends an email via cron, using sendemail (which I believe is a Perl program that doesn't need an MTA). Where are these sent-emails stored? If they are stored at all?

NOTE: Since I installed sendemail, it looks like all other email packages, postfix, mail, sendmail, were uninstalled automatically.

Thank you.

• Ubuntu 14.04 installed as a VM on a machine that sends emails, with attachments, via Perl 5.18.2. That part works because Perl talks directly to the SMTP server.
• Let's call the machine name "myubuntu".
• I have cron jobs that used to send the local "myubuntu" account mail when done which included any error messages. I read the emails via alpine.
• I recently installed SSMTP, Postfix, sendemail to try and send emails with attachments via cron, but those didn't send attachments. I suspect these uninstalled sendmail.
• My cron jobs run fine, as my Perl program emails them to another email, but my cron jobs no longer send email to the local 'chuck' account on the machine "myubuntu".
• I believe I changed my "myubuntu" to "myubuntu.net" somewhere but I don't remember where. I checked /etc/hosts and /etc/hostname to no avail.
• When using alpine to send a test email from 'chuck' to 'chuck' I get this error: "Cannot find /usr/sbin/sendmailb".
• So I installed sendmail, and tested this with an 'at' job, but got no email on "chuck@myubuntu".
• When I ping "myubuntu.net" I get: 5 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss. I have the same problem when I ping 127.0.0.1.

How do I get cron to send email back to the local 'chuck' account again? Crontab has "MAIL=chuck" in the crontab file. Why isn't that going to the local account?

Should I uninstall postfix, ssmtp, and sendmail?

Thanks.

EDIT: when I type 'mailq' I get this error on every email: "Deferred: Connection timed out with [127.0.0.1]". So perhaps my /etc/hosts file is not set up right, or I didn't refresh it correctly? How do I refresh things when I change my /etc/hosts?

1. Ubuntu 14.04 on a virtual machine that is not my PC. I use my PC (Windows 7 and Putty 0.63) to shell into it.
2. Uname=Linux ubuntucomp 3.13.0-24-generic #46-Ubuntu SMP Thu Apr 10 19:11:08 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
3. This machine is on our private network and does not have an official registered domain name. It has it's own IP but I think it's an internal IP. This machine is not accessed from outside our network, I only use it to send outgoing emails to people in our company. I got Perl to send an email out to our SMTP provider and that works fine.
4. We pay for an external SMTP service, so that part is done. The only SMTP authentication I use is a username and password. SSL is not needed.
5. I have no intention of receiving any email from the outside world on this machine.
6. Right now my emails are being blocked by my SMTP provider, possibly because I don't have a FQDN. The error I get is "connection timed out".
7. I can't even telnet from my PC to the SMTP server, I also get a "timeout" error. I used Putty 0.63. Yet I can still send email via a Perl program on Ubuntu.
8. IT cannot help me so I'm on my own. I'm new to sysadmin for Ubuntu.

I need a way to send emails with an attachment via the command line (for an automated cron process) without setting up a registered domain, MX or A record. What are my options? Postfix won't do this as it requires a bunch of network settings set up along with a (DNS?) record.

Since the Perl module uses the SMTP protocol to directly log into the SMTP server, I suspect I need an Ubuntu package that does the same, without passing the task onto another MTA.

I tried SSMTP

1. Using ssmtp I got this error from /var/log/mail.log: Oct 22 10:18:19 ubuntucomp sSMTP[16075]: Unable to connect to "smtpout.payserv.net" port 587. Process failed with error code 1. Oct 22 10:18:19 ubuntucomp sSMTP[16075]: Cannot open smtpout.payserv.net:587
2. In /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf I even changed the setting "Rewritedomain" to be our actual company domain name.
3. And how do I restart the SSMTP daemon after I make changes to the ssmtp.conf file? Perhaps that's part of the problem.

I tried telnetting into the SMTP server

1. I tried telnetting into smtpout.payserv.net port 25 and just got "220 *******************", then Putty 0.63 quit.

Is it possible my SMTP company has blocked my IP? Should I just call them?

Let's back up a bit

1. I did 'netstat -an|grep smtp' and did not see an smtp service running. How do I start it?
2. Do I need to add the smtp server to /etc/hosts?

Thanks.