Question Mails stuck in queue

[mathi_reg]

hey guys,

I don't know what could cause this, but the mails are stuck in the mail queue it seems for one of my domains.

For this domain the mail service is deactivated under Domain > Mail Settings as the Mail Management for this domain is not handled via Plesk but on another server.

The website however is a webshop that automatically sends E-Mails from [email protected] to new customers. Both mails that are deffered are sent from [email protected] to some other E-Mail address but won't go out.

Thanks,
Matt

 

[Monty]

What do you see in the mail log files?
To find out where your logs are: Plesk for Linux services logs and configuration files

 

[Ales]

If at all possible, configure this webshop to use SMTP and send messages through a valid account on that other server. If not, there will be a continuous risk of messages failing DKIM and SPF checks and getting recognized as spam on recipient's end.

SPF could easily be configured to prevent this, but DKIM will be harder.

Using SMTP will solve the above and the original issue you have now.

 

[MarkM]

^ sounds more like a bandaid then a fix.

Using something like https://www.mail-tester.com would help in this case.

 

[mathi_reg]

Hey guys,

these are my current log files: Imgur

Can't really interpret anything here. thanks

 

[Monty]

Your logs do not show any outgoing mail delivery attempts, you should look at the whole log. To search the log for a single mail it's best you look up the queue-id of the mail and search for that.

This can be achieved like this:

postqueue -p

Then, copy the queue-id (first column) of a deferred mail and then:

grep <queue-id> /var/log/maillog

(or /usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog

Then you will see what happened with the mail and why it's stuck in the queue.

 

[mathi_reg]

Hey @Monty sorry for the late late feedback, I was sick the last weeks and am fully back now.

I was able to do the grep command above and find out what might be the cause for this: e.g. Error messages | GMX Postmaster


from=<[email protected]>, size=4452, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
May 7 09:12:41 ip-172-31-15-200 postfix/smtp[13879]: 4F9D540143: host mx01.emig.gmx.net[212.227.17.5] refused to talk to me: 554-gmx.net (mxgmx114) Nemesis ESMTP Service not available 554-No SMTP service 554-Bad DNS PTR resource record. 554 For explanation visit Error messages | GMX Postmaster

 

[mathi_reg]

@Monty @MarkM if the DNS Management is not with me but someone else is simply pointing the DNS to my IP of the server, do I have to "Activate the Mail service for this domain" or not? The website has webforms that use for instance [email protected] as a receiver-address where domain.com is the domain that the site is running on. But I have "Mail service" deactivated for it as e-mails are managed somehwere else.

 

[Monty]

If your server is not the server that should receive mails for your domain, then you _must_ keep mail services for this domain deactivated on your Plesk server. But this has nothing to do with your outgoing mail issue: The issue is clearly described in the link from GMX Postmaster.

Your IP (Amazon AWS Cloud) is not allowed to send mails to GMX because GMX doesn't like your PTR.

That basically leaves you with 3 options:
1) Ask Amazon to change the PTR of that IP to something like your.servername.tld (but I highly doubt they will do that)
2) Ask GMX to accept mails from your IP by whitelisting it (highly unlikely that they will do that)
3) Configure your mail sending scripts to send mails over another mailhost, for example the mailhost of your ISP (using port 587, submission)

I guess option 3 is your best shot.

 

[mathi_reg]

@Monty thanks, do you have maybe some "tutorial" or reference on how to do 3, I'm by far no server guru or expert, and am not sure how to set that properly and what exactly has to be done where.

@Monty the ISP for the domains are different. E.g. I have two domains the mails are not going out yet. Both are DNS managed on different ISPs and are in control of a client, not me.

 

[mathi_reg]

This is what I have as as setting right now and all Mail Services deactivated for the domains.

 

[Monty]

@Monty thanks, do you have maybe some "tutorial" or reference on how to do 3, I'm by far no server guru or expert, and am not sure how to set that properly and what exactly has to be done where.

@Monty the ISP for the domains are different. E.g. I have two domains the mails are not going out yet. Both are DNS managed on different ISPs and are in control of a client, not me.

The ISP of the domains are not the issue here. The issue is the IP address of your server. This IP is not accepted by GMX (and possibly others). So the provider of your IP address should be able to help you.

Regarding the PHP scripts: Check your PHP scripts or your webshop administration panel if you can configure an SMTP server there. Most of the time those webshop applications let you specify an SMTP server, SMTP username and SMTP port of a mailhost to send the mails.
By default it probably uses "localhost", which is your own server. But as this server is not able to send mails to some destinations, you should investigate if you have access to a mailhost somewhere. If you do, then use that in your webshop configuration.

 

[mathi_reg]

The provider of my IP Address is AWS EC2 Elastic IP … this is not about a webshop only, it also occurs on other websites where the domain is pointed to this Plesk ID …

 

[Monty]

Yes, that's what I'm saying: It's not about your webshop. It doesn't matter which domains are hosted on your Plesk server. It doesn't matter which control panel or OS you run on your server. It doesn't matter which program sends the mail. It doesn't matter which sender domain you use to send your mails.

It is your IP that is the problem. Your IP cannot send mails to GMX, period. GMX will not accept any mails from your IP, no matter which sender address you use or what program sends the mail.

Think of it like a phone number: If I block your phone number then you won't be able to call me, no matter if it's you who's calling or if you give your phone to a friend. Your number is blocked.

So please review the 3 options in post #9 and/or contact Amazon/GMX.

 

[mathi_reg]

@Monty thanks, I get that the IP is blocked like you write.

1.) I checked with some Blacklisting Services, and the IP is not blocked anywhere, so it's not blacklisted
2.) The only possible solution from post #9 is option 3 then, but I don't know how to implement that.

 

[MarkM]

Let's skip everything in this thread and just focus on the error;

from=<[email protected]>, size=4452, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
May 7 09:12:41 ip-172-31-15-200 postfix/smtp[13879]: 4F9D540143: host mx01.emig.gmx.net[212.227.17.5] refused to talk to me: 554-gmx.net (mxgmx114) Nemesis ESMTP Service not available 554-No SMTP service 554-Bad DNS PTR resource record. 554 For explanation visit Error messages | GMX Postmaster

Specifically;

Bad DNS PTR resource record

A PTR record resolves an IP address to a fully-qualified domain name. PTR records are used for the Reverse DNS lookup.

This is something you need to set up in AWS. Specifically, they offer a form which you can find here;

Amazon Web Services Sign-In

 

[khoubeib bach]

554-Bad DNS PTR resource record => your revDNS does not resolv correctly from your sending IP address
check this link it's the ptr record for the IP address of gmx you can understand it from a clear exemple :
Global DNS Propagation Checker - What's My DNS?