Inbound port 25 connection refused

[ckh]

Got a weird problem. Running Centos 6.3, cpanel, csf. The server isn't receiving email. It sends fine.

csf configuration shows port 25 inbound/outbound open.

From two other servers I tried to telnet in to the server and the connection is refused ( telnet xx.xx.xx.xx 25 )

It is refused whether csf is enabled or disabled. Both the server IPs are also whitelisted in the firewall.

Host Access control is blank, nothing there.

I can telnet outbound on the server to the other two servers. I can ping the server. If I use email troubleshooter tool in WHM from one of the other servers, it correctly displays the IP address. Traceroute works fine.

I was thinking that the datacenter was filtering the inbound somewhere, but, they said they weren't, though I don't think they verified.

nmap run on the server using 127.0.0.1 shows the smtp port open while using the server IP or the private IP shows port 25 to be closed.

I can't think of anything else that could cause the port to be closed. Anyone have any suggestions?

[ForumAdmin]

Have you looked in the exim logs to see if there's a message being logged when you connect? You could also try setting:

log_selector = all

in the exim.conf and telnet in again to see if anything at all is logged in exim_mainlog.

[ckh]

It was an exim configuration error. Problem solved.