I am behind a very restrictive firewall which blocks all my SMTP requests in my network, in a bid to prevent viruses from spreading due to a notorious mail client. On top of that, the only ssh server I have access to can connect to an SMTP server, but port forwarding has been blocked. So, this hack is to use the ssh server as a mail relay without port forwarding for mail clients like Mutt, KMail.
The concept used is simple: first, enable automatic ssh logging. Then, open a pipe to the ssh server using pexpect, and then code the SMTP server text like this:
#!/usr/bin/python
import pexpect, sys
import email
from email.Utils import getaddresses
SSHSERV = "sshserv"
SMTPSERV = "smtpserv"
if __name__ == "__main__":
s = sys.stdin.read()
msg = email.message_from_string(s)
tos = msg.get_all('to', [])
ccs = msg.get_all('cc', [])
bccs = msg.get_all('bcc', [])
resent_tos = msg.get_all('resent-to', [])
resent_ccs = msg.get_all('resent-cc', [])
all_recipients = getaddresses(tos + ccs + bccs + resent_tos + resent_ccs)
from_addr = email.Utils.parseaddr(msg['From'])[1]
if msg.has_key('Resent-From'):
from_addr = email.Utils.parseaddr(msg['Resent-From'])[1]
child = pexpect.spawn ('ssh %s telnet %s 25' % (SSHSERV, SMTPSERV))
child.expect ('220 .*')
import socket
child.sendline ('ehlo %s' % socket.getfqdn())
child.expect ('250 8BITMIME')
child.sendline ('MAIL FROM: <%s>' % from_addr)
child.expect ('250 Ok.*')
for rcpt in all_recipients:
if len(rcpt[1]) < 1 or rcpt[1] == "<>":
continue
child.sendline ('RCPT TO: <%s>' % rcpt[1])
child.expect ('250 Ok.*')
child.sendline("DATA")
child.expect(".*<CR><LF>")
child.send(s + "\n.\n")
child.expect ('250 Ok.*')
child.close()
Adapt the SSHSERV and SMTPSERV to your needs. Now, set this to be the "sendmail" program of your mail client, like Mutt or KMail, and enjoy!
The concept can be extended to write a mail proxy server as well, which can be used to forward requests from mail from other "network only" clients like Netscape Mail.
