title: How to get around an ISP block on port 25 for SMTP
body: <p>Yes, this question has been answered in a variety of ways, none of which, are answered in a way that fit my needs.  So, therefore I'm asking mine specific to my situation.</p>
  
  <p>I've tried, probably 5 or 6 different ways for setting up a mail (SMTP) server on my spare computer at home that I've also set to run my website.  My ISP blocks several ports like 80 and 25 that allow for hosting web servers, mail servers, ftp servers. etc.  Luckily, my domain registrar had a way to forward my traffic to a specific port where then I used some options in my router to do port translation and redirect traffic from one port specified in my account settings on my registrar's site to go to port 80 on my web server computer, which worked just fine, and my website is up.  </p>
  
  <p>However, I've come to find out that by default, when setting up an MX record so I can set up a mail server, their system by default sends traffic to port 25. (So rather than the web server pointer that I can specify:  012.345.678.910:8080, the MX record has to be something like mail.mydomain.com or simply mydomain.com.  There is no way in their options (currently) to specify a port like you can for the website.  So, I guess this is a 2 part question.  1.  Did I just happen to choose a crappy domain registrar; or specifically, is this a capability offered by default by a lot of other domain registrar's that I'm just missing out on?  and 2.  Is there any other way to make this happen?  My ISP charges and arm and a leg for Business accounts that unlock port 25, and I'd like to not have to go that route.  I understand you can set your SMTP server to listen and send out traffic on a different port, but that does me no good if my domain registrar's MX record is still forwarding to port 25 for incoming mail.  Any help or advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT:</p>
  
  <p>I left out the obvious possibility that I could be messing up my setup in regard to the fact that I've never successfully set up an SMTP server before so I'm quite new to this.  With that sad, could I be confused on how mail servers operate, is there a difference or possibility of an ISP blocking incoming traffic on a port vice outgoing?  What I mean is, am I confused in that if I've set up everything properly, should I be able to receive (listen) or port 25 no matter what, and then have to send outgoing mail out on an unblocked smtp port?</p>
  
  <p>I've yet to try sending out mail from my server due to the fact that I don't want to have things set up wrong and then get my IP blacklisted, so I've only tried experimenting with trying to receive email and as I've said, I've tried about 5 or 6 (all very confusing and seemingly incomplete or not very detailed) tutorials on how to set up an SMTP server, and I have yet to get incoming mail either.  As a personal note, it seems weird to me that out of the several tutorials I've searched and read, that not one bares nearly any similarity to the next with regard to the first part of installing postfix; from there, it all becomes different.  This doesn't help me understand what I could be doing wrong if indeed that is what is happening.  Finally just for continuity, I did go to <a href="http://port25.icannotconnect.com/" rel="noreferrer">http://port25.icannotconnect.com/</a> and it did indeed say "BLOCKED".</p>
  
  <p>Thanks again.</p>