Hotmail and yahoo email issues

[mparadis]

For years, we've had problems getting email to hotmail, yahoo and some others. To hotmail, email pretty much just plain disappears. To yahoo, it's always gets deferred and eventually makes it. I've always thought it was related to domainkeys but using external email servers didn't solve the problem either.

I've been using external DNS servers rather than the one on plesk. However, at this point, I'd like to start using the built in one so that I can take advantage of the domainkeys function in the hopes of ending my nightmare with the above sites.

First, if anyone knows why these sites are problems, I'd prefer fixing that but if not, the question is, how can I put to use the DNS server so that I can use the domainkeys function. The thing is, I already have ns1, ns2 and ns3 servers as primary and slaves. I hate to have to get into changing those things.

Mike

 

[breun]

Mail to Hotmail and Yahoo works fine from our servers, also from servers that don't use DomainKeys. Have you checked if your servers are on any blacklists?

 

[mparadis]

Mail to Hotmail and Yahoo works fine from our servers, also from servers that don't use DomainKeys. Have you checked if your servers are on any blacklists?

Yes, I have, this has been a problem for me for a very long time. I've tried everything. We're not on black lists, we're not blocked, we just can't get mail to these sites through plesk, ever. I've even used their online tools to check to see if our emails met their requirements and it does.

I'm baffled so was hoping that maybe the answer might be in the new domainkeys function now that it's built in.

Mike

 

[faris]

What sort of rDNS do you have? Is it your hostname? Is it short and sweet or long and complicated?

I'm just wondering if that might have something to do with it.

Also is /var/qmail/control/me set the same thing as your rDNS/Hostname?

You've probably been through all this a million times but "just in case"...

Faris.

 

[mparadis]

>What sort of rDNS do you have? Is it your hostname? Is it short and sweet or long and complicated?

Yes, the name of the plesk server and it's IP.

>Also is /var/qmail/control/me set the same thing as your rDNS/Hostname?

Yes, it's the same as the reverse record would show the world.

I've been using external servers now and then to test. My domainkeys setup and testing to these sites I mentioned always say everything is fine. Yet, plesk simply cannot send email to sites like hotmail and yahoo without problems. It's driven me nuts for almost two years now trying to figure this out.

Mike

 

[mparadis]

In all of the changes I've made, I just noticed one thing in my DNS record;

x.x.x.31 IN PTR mail.some-domain-on-plesk.com.

The above is what I have in each domain's record for example.
However, the DNS master zone reverse records is;

31.x.x.x.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR my.plesk-servers-name.com

So, if domains are sending as mail.somedomain.com and their PTR is being seen as the plesk server's IP, that would cause problems right? Guess I'm a bit confused about that because it's plesk sending so would the domain's PTR even be seen by the receiving mail server?

Problem is, for all this time, every time it seems like an 'ah ha!' moment, it never seems to be the answer.

Mike

 

[breun]

It's best to only have one PTR record per IP address. I believe the default Plesk template had a PTR which would give *every domain* a PTR record. That is not really a recommended setup.

Yet, plesk simply cannot send email to sites like hotmail and yahoo without problems.

The *sending* part is something you can check in your maillog. Is email to those addresses really not being sent out? I though the problems were Hotmail and Yahoo not letting mail from your server get through to people's mailboxes.

 

[mparadis]

>It's best to only have one PTR record per IP address. I believe the default Plesk template had a PTR which would give >*every domain* a PTR record. That is not really a recommended setup.

Doing a reverse showed everything on the plesk server when I was doing that. Every domain does have a PTR pointing back to them in the DNS, but it dawns on me that it's to mail.domainname.com and not to the mail server.

I'm pretty sure I've made those changes in the past too with no effect on the problem.

>The *sending* part is something you can check in your maillog. Is email to those addresses really not being
>sent out? I though the problems were Hotmail and Yahoo not letting mail from your server get through to people's >mailboxes.

The problem is that mail to hotmail, sometimes shows up in their spam boxes and most times, just disappear into the ether, not even a bounce. Email to yahoo for example, is *always* deferred, never ever makes it in the first time.

Mike

 

[mparadis]

>It's best to only have one PTR record per IP address. I believe the default Plesk template had a PTR which would give >*every domain* a PTR record. That is not really a recommended setup.

I re-read this and yes, that's what I was saying I guess . That's how I have it set up on the DNS server. However, I just noticed that each domain record also has it's own PTR pointing to itself, but as mail.domain.com.

Either way, I've changed these things before and it was not the cause of the problems but I'll clean that up.

Mike

 

[mparadis]

Since plesk has it's own PTR record, each domain doesn't need one then right? How do others deal with this, do you assign mail.domain.com and rDNS in each record for each domain or do you just point to your plesk server for all incoming and outgoing email?

Mike

 

[breun]

Right, you don't need a PTR record for every domain. (It even causes confusion sometimes as qmail won't know which domain name to use and it will pick a random domain name from your PTR records and put that in the mail headers.)

 

[mparadis]

Right, you don't need a PTR record for every domain. (It even causes confusion sometimes as qmail won't know which domain name to use and it will pick a random domain name from your PTR records and put that in the mail headers.)

Great heads up, sure sounds logical!

The reason I did that was because I felt that each domain owner might want the email to look like it's coming from them, not the hosting provider. I wonder if all along, this really has been the problem?

I'll change a couple and see what happens.

Mike

 

[breun]

Removing just a couple won't change much. You need to remove all the PTR records that don't point to your server's hostname.

 

[mparadis]

Removing just a couple won't change much. You need to remove all the PTR records that don't point to your server's hostname.

They do point to the server and it's IP, it's just that there might be confusion.

You see, in each record, there is a PTR which points to mail.domain.com, and mail.domain.com points back to the plesk servers IP. In effect, it gives it multiple names but the idea was to make it look like each domain has it's own mail server.

I thought domain owners might want the email to look like it's coming from their own domains. So I had a PTR record in each domain pointing to mail and an A record for the IP of the plesk server.

So based on what we're talking about, I need to change each domain to the following;

users-domain.com, x.x.x.31, the public IP of the plesk server.
mail.users-domain.com, x.x.x.31, the public IP of the plesk server
users-domain.com, TXT "v=spf1 ip4:x.x.x.31 a mx a:my.pleskserver.domain.com"
x.x.x.31, PTR, my.pleskserver.domain.com.

Sounds like things would be easier if I didn't bother doing it that way but I want to make sure I don't go messing up my DNS records .

Mike

 

[breun]

I thought domain owners might want the email to look like it's coming from their own domains. So I had a PTR record in each domain pointing to mail and an A record for the IP of the plesk server.

I don't believe that works. You'll end up with multiple PTR records for one IP address and qmail will just use a random one. Then client1 sends an email through your server and the recipient sees client15's domain in the headers, for instance.

 

[mparadis]

I don't believe that works. You'll end up with multiple PTR records for one IP address and qmail will just use a random one. Then client1 sends an email through your server and the recipient sees client15's domain in the headers, for instance.

It's been working for a long time but I think it's now obvious that it is also causing some MTA confusion. I need to clean this up.

Mike