On-Demand Mail Relay

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On-Demand Mail Relay (ODMR) is an SMTP extension standardized in RFC 2645 that allows e-mail to be relayed to the recipients after they have been authenticated. It uses the extended SMTP command ATRN, similar to the ETRN command but available for dynamically assigned IP addresses.

ODMR works in the following way: to check their inbound mail, customers issue EHLO and AUTH commands to the ODMR service, followed by ATRN command (Authenticated TuRN); after a successful ATRN command the ODMR server begins to act as an SMTP client and starts to send all messages directed to the customer's domain (or domains) using SMTP protocol, via the same TCP connection. Since connections are initiated by customers, this protocol works well for machines having dynamically assigned IPs and/or are firewall protected (i.e. your ISP may block incoming connection on port 25 or may use NAT). Only the ODMR server, referred as the provider, must listen to SMTP connections on a fixed IP address.