There are usually two options - first, most ISPs (and particularly e-mail
suppliers) also supply FQDN's as part of their service - often at no extra
charge (since it costs them nothing). Of course that way your FQDN would
be tied to the provider, and change whenever you switch providers, but if
all you care about is having one for uses like HELO lines, etc, it would be
fine (you just need to remember to reconfigure when required.)
While I understand that's the ideal solution ... I think as a solution
to THIS problem it's rather ridiculous.
First, I do not agree with your statement that ISPs/e-mail suppliers
also provide FQDNs as part of their service. I do not believe, for
example, that Verizon (my current ISP) or pobox.com (my current email
forwarder) does this, and if they do they certainly don't do it for
free. Okay, these are only two data points. Maybe everyone else does
it.
Now, my edge router does have an IP address that has a FQDN (something
based on the IP address). But AFAIK there isn't really a reasonable way
for someone behind a NAT to determine what their external IP address is;
I could hardcode it, but it changes occasionally.
Secondly ... I will note that I believe no other MUA lets you explicitly
configure the hostname for the SMTP HELO/EHLO messages. Maybe there are
a few that do ... but certainly none of the common programs that the
vast majority of people on Windows use. In my experience, those MUAs
simply use an unqualified name based on the hostname of the local box.
That suggests to me that needing a FQDN to send mail is not a de facto
requirement, and having it be a requirement for nmh users is an undue
burden. FWIW, at home my Received headers probably show this email
coming from the ".internal" domain, and AFAIK I don't get spam bounces.
Thirdly ... I think it's ridiculous that Stanford's anti-spam rules
trawl through Received headers (which are defined as being free-form)
and look for suspicious hostnames when you've already sent that email
through your email provider and it has a valid DKIM header; gmail has
already certified that the email came from an authenticated user, why
does Stanford care what your local hostname is?
--Ken
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