We are using version 5.3.1-B1748.
Two SMTP routes are configured for the same target SMTP host "localhost" and TCP/IP port 50251.
Using Outlook Express on Windows XP one mail is sent to 2 recipients, one each for each of the configured SMTP routes.
hMailServer initiates 2 SMTP sessions, one for each recipient.

This generates unnecessary traffic, which is painful, especially as our medium for reaching the destination mail domains sometimes requires very low effective baud rates. The decision to copy the mail should be left to the target SMTP host in this case.

Is there some way of configuring hMailServer to not copy the mail?

Why do you have two routes setup to the same SMTP server?
Why are you concerned about bandwidth when sending to 'localhost'?

But isn't hMailserver doing EXACTLY as you ask?
If you hadn't set the two routes, the message wouldn't be split for each recipient.

What happens when there are NO routes set up?

Our SMTP Server is a gateway to a system for transmitting mails via radio. There are actually usually more than one gateway running on the localhost for covering different frequency bands, using different protocols.

Each destination "node" has its own mail domain. There could be many destination nodes and thus many mail domains being served by one of the gateways. If it were possible to put in a comma-separated list of mail domains in one route this could solve our problem, but as far as I know this is not possible.

Because the gateways are running on the same host as hMailServer, they need to use TCP ports other than 25. Setting up a DNS for this would solve the problem of multiple domains, but how can hMailServer be told to use a different port?

Ok a couple of things there.

1. If I set a route for the domain hotmail.com to go via my ISP, and then another route for gmail.com to go via the same ISP mailserver, are these then treated as two connections or just one? I suspect just one.

2. in the hMailserver Administrator GUI >> Advanced >> TCP/IP ports

Thanks very much for the quick answers to my questions, mattg.


Our gateway would transmit a mail destined for hotmail.com and gmail.com to the same peer node via radio in one transmission session, if these two domains are reachable via that peer node. The peer gateway at the other end would make a copy to send it on to the two domains, if necessary. But as I said hMailServer would create 2 SMTP sessions in this case. To work around it we would have to delay transmission of an e-mail and re-combine them if required.


hMailserver Administrator GUI >> Advanced >> TCP/IP ports sets the ports on which hMailServer is to listen on. That should probably remain that way so that we can use any mail client to create our mails or even have the MTA on MS Server relay mails to hMailServer. The two mail gateways on our system are configured to listen on ports 50251 and 50252 respectively. For hMailServer to use DNS lookup to determine where the mails are to be sent to, we would need some way of informing hMailServer to use one of the above-mentioned ports instead of 25. As far as I can see this is not possible, which is why we set SMTP routes in hMailServer.


IMHO the fact remains that hMailServer should only make copies of mails if they are destined for different mail servers.