Resolved Cloudflare, DNS and Mail

[ciB]

I own domain.de and it's hosted on my Plesk server xxxx.startoserver.de

rDNS used to be xxxx.startoserver.de and my hostname in Plesk was also xxxx.startoserver.de.
In cloudflare I had the following records:

A domain.de --> IP (proxied)
A mail.domain.de --> IP (DNS only)
MX --> mail.domain.de (DNS only)
and the stuff for autodiscover (imap, smtp, pop) --> mail.domain.de (DNS only)

In plesk I changed the mailserver to be mail.<domain>

Unfortunately some providers rejected my mails for bad DNS PTR. To fix this, I changed my hostname in Plesk to domain.de and rDNS with my provider also to domain.de. This seemed to have fixed my problems.. now I seem to have found one provider who still rejects my mails. Turning off the proxy for the A record (domain.de --> IP) fixes the last issue. Obviously, this is not ideal.


What I thought I should be doing instead is the following:

Use xxxx.startoserver.de for rDNS and hostname and change the mailserver back to <domain>

A domain.de --> IP (proxied)
A mail.domain.de --> IP (DNS only)
MX --> xxxx.startoserver.de (DNS only)

Since the mailserver is already in use and people have set up their mail clients, I do not want that they would need to change their servers (currently mail.domain.de). Can somebody confirm/deny/correct my thoughts?

Thanks

 

[ciB]

Or even better, I use something like srv01.domain.de as my hostname and rDNS, and change the MX entry to srv01.domain.de would that work?

 

[LevelupMedia]

Hi, we had same issues for a long time, we couldn't find anyone that would explain best practices. Now we have plesk setup with multiple domains for half of them we use dedicated IP addresses and rest is shared on multiple IP addresses.

We are also new at this but here is what we did.

Our setup today is:

0. Server hostname is: srv01.domain.de
1. In settings: Server-Wide Mail Settings > Outgoing mail mode > Send from domain IP addresses
2. For claudflare we copy DNS settings from plesk DNS (We do not use "MX entry to srv01.domain.de", we tried that approach but in one domain mail got hacked and reputation was hit for multiple domains, for same reason we use 1) We don't use proxy on claudflare.
3. For RDNS with provider, on dedicated IP's we put it's domain, and for shared IP we put server hostname. Setup RDNS for IPv6 to your server hostname. As i know, you cant set PTR record on claudflare, it must go through hosting provider.
4. Setup SPF, DKIM, SSL for webmail, and mail
5. Join microsoft's JMRP and list all of your IP adresses, for those blocked over there, use this to clear them (when requesting there is a procedure, first you fill the form, than when they reject you (and they will) you reply on email (in one of emails you get you'll see "please reply on this email...") and explain situation and send them invoice for IP address from hosting provider as a proof of ownership). Than there is another blacklist by microsft and it's seperate from JMPR, this one is office 365, for this one use this to delist your IP, there is no special procedure.
6. Instal RBL CHECK extension on plesk and setup it to check domain weekly for blacklisted IP adresses. Clear every IP address from known blacklists.

We did this, and now we mostly don't have problems, even if RDNS and SMTP Banner Check doesn't match for domain. But main thing we learned from experience is that for a new domain or domain that changed IP it takes at least a month to settle down, for some reason.

I hope this will help you

 

[ciB]

I managedto fix the problem with my above solution, thanks anyway!

 

[LevelupMedia]

If you could explain your exact setup, that would be great.

 

[ciB]

1. In Cloudflare, I use a proxy for my domain.de to my server's ip
2. Use another unproxied subdomain (A) srv01.domain.de--> server ip
3. Use srv01.domain.de as my rDNS with my hoster
4. Use MX domain.de --> srv01.domain.de
5. Use unproxied subdomain (A) mail.domain.de --> server ip
6. Use srv01.domain.de as my hostname in Plesk
7. Edit panel.ini in Plesk to change displayed mailserver from domain.de to mail.domain.de
8. Done

 

[latrille]

Hello,
Thank you, you solution is really fine !
Just the step 7 I can't find.
What is exactly the field you have changed (I can't find "mailserver") in the panel.ini

Thank you
Aude

 

[ciB]

Hello,
Thank you, you solution is really fine !
Just the step 7 I can't find.
What is exactly the field you have changed (I can't find "mailserver") in the panel.ini

Thank you
Aude

Those are the settings that I changed:

[mail]
clientConfig.outgoingServer = mail.<domain>
clientConfig.incomingServer = mail.<domain>

 

[latrille]

ok thank you very much but I can't see the panel.ini file in
/usr/local/psa/admin/conf/panel.ini
I have only panel.ini.sample
Is this file hidden ?

 

[ciB]

I use the panel.ini editor extension to edit the file - I assume that if there is no panel.ini it uses default values and you only need to add entries to panel.ini that you want to modify - but I'm not 100 percent certain.

 

[latrille]

Thank you. Actually, I have changed these values in the panel.ini editor like attached files.
But the test doesn't work. The HELO is still domain and not mail.domain

Here is the file attached - the adds are in red, not sure that the file update is ok

 

[ciB]

Hm. Then I don't know how to further help you, sorry.