• MX, by definition, listens on port 25 and is publicly advertised via DNS as such. If you use this for message submission as well as for receiving externally originated email then, in order for it not to be an open relay, you need to enable authenticated submission and allow authenticated users to relay. This makes your MX a target for brute force attacks against SMTP AUTH.
  
  
• You have no control over the IP address allocated to your users' iPhones while they are out and about (obviously you do have control while they are on your WLAN). An MX server used for message submission therefore cannot use any IP reputation service (chiefly DNSBLs) to deny email at the time of delivery because you cannot know whether an individual inbound email is one of your users submitting a message via iPhone or a compromised home or mobile computer being used as a socks proxy to deliver spam.
  
  (The Domino allow authenticated users to relay feature is pre-empted by both local and DNS block lists.)

Recognising this, we have a server which is not MX, which listens on port 587 (the standard port for message submission) and which only accepts authenticated submission.

You'll find that documented here.

You can specify the port to use during mail account set-up on the iPhone by using syntax like

• msa-server.example.com:587

That is, append a colon and the port number to use for message submission to the end of the host name to be used for SMTP submission.

And that's it.

It works, and the user * is delighted though he hasn't yet asked about PIM sync...

* The type of user whose requests cannot safely be refused.

1. Ben Rose29/04/2008 14:19:09
Homepage: http://www.jaffacake.net

Interesting stuff.

I went through a similar process to enable the email on my Nokia E90 to connect to my personal Domino server. I had the slight advantage that I don't use Domino as my MX which gave me some extra options.

2. Bryan Schmiedeler29/04/2008 15:08:39

I understand that Lotus is working on something for the iPhone. My guess is that it will be DWA but who knows? Ed Brill has mentioned this before. I bet it comes when the new iPhone and sofware is released, sometime in June.

3. Nathan T. Freeman30/04/2008 14:05:19
Homepage: http://nathan.lotus911.com

@2 - Why speculate? DWA Lite for the iPhone was announced and even demonstrated at Lotusphere. I believe the target is 8.0.2, which is a summer target. The latest it would be delivered is Domino 8.5, which is due by Q4.

Nice write-up Chris. Thanks for the details on message submission vs. MX, too! Very handy.

4. Jonathan Walkup30/04/2008 14:25:14

DWA Lite for iPhone is part of 8.5, not 8.0.2. There has been much speculation about whether Lotus will announce something like Lotus Traveller for the iPhone, but nothing substantive yet.

5. Chris Linfoot30/04/2008 14:40:10

Nice to see traveller spelled correctly for a change.

6. Barb Skedel30/04/2008 16:48:30

I hope IBM is working toward a true sync product instead of just the DWA Lite client. I have quite a few iphone users already and they want their mail, calendar, and contacts to sync directly into the iphones corresponding apps. They love the fact they can get their email via IMAP but wish it was pushed down to the device (like a blackberry) too instead of them having to pull it.

7. Mike Baker20/08/2008 00:39:34

I've gotten the basic Notes IMAP functionality working on the iPhone 3g, but I'm struggling with getting email deleted on the iPhone to be deleted on the server. I'm not extremely familiar with IMAP, but I do understand how things can be tagged as deleted, etc. From you experience, how does deleting an email on the iPhone work from the server's perspective?

8. Chris Linfoot20/08/2008 08:16:01

Did you modify the mail file to support IMAP?

See the Domino Administrator help topic "How Domino modifies mail files to support IMAP".

9. Mike Baker20/08/2008 12:56:26

We are using R6.5.4, and I've tried:

convert -e mail\myfile.nsf

as well as following that up with:

convert -h mail\myfile.nsf

What steps do you use to delete a message on the iPhone? I mean, I know how to select messages and delete them, but maybe you are doing something different???

This is very frustrating...

10. Chris Linfoot20/08/2008 13:29:45

Can't really help as I don't have an iPhone. One user here does and he seems to have no issues. I'll ask him when I see him.

11. Mike Eovino27/09/2008 04:20:48
Homepage: http://dominoiphone.wordpress.com/2008/09/27/email-imap-vpn-att-smtp/

Chris, great post. I hope you don't mind, that I've linked to this from my blog.

12. Christopher Harvey15/10/2008 20:48:14

I have the same problem as Mike Baker; deletions and move to folder on the iPhone are NOT reflected in my Notes client.

13. K Wedge27/10/2008 12:19:24

Same problem with deletions here. They are deleted from an Imap point of view. I.e. if I delete on the iPhone, the message is also deleted for other Imap clients. But not the Notes client. We're on server version 8.0.1 and Mac client 8.5 beta.

14. Mark05/11/2008 10:31:08

There's a product called DME (http://www.dmesync.com) that features full integration from the iphone to lotus notes, including mail, calendar, invites, free time search etc.

It puts a server between notes and the client and syncs using its own protocol and so is very secure. This also allows it to provide a huge amount of device management features through the server admin interface.

This is really a solution for businesses, but I guess most notes users are in that category.

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