Resolved Plesk Mailserver not sending to external email addresses, only sends to internal addresses

[Edward A B]

Hi,

I hope not to be too much of a bother. I got a 'simple-to-describe' issue: My Plesk mail server seems to do everything thing ok ECXEPT sending mails to external Email addresses. I use Webmail as well as PHP scripts to send mails from my server. I can use webmail to send mails between my Plesk webmail email accounts but when I attempt to send to an external email address (eg. [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]), it never sends. When I check the sending status all I see is ''SENDING''. I'M USING PLESK ONYX and my VPS server is from 1and1 Ionos, My OS is Centos 7.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[Ales]

I suggest checking /var/log/maillog to see what happens to these messages.

Is this a new VPS that has had this issue from the beginning or is this something that just started happening? Does IONOS block your port 25?

 

[Edward A B]

I suggest checking /var/log/maillog to see what happens to these messages.

Is this a new VPS that has had this issue from the beginning or is this something that just started happening? Does IONOS block your port 25?

Hi Ales,
It's a new VPS which has had this issue from day one. I've spoken to IONOS to open port 25 and they said they've opened it. Today I realised that the emails have started to be delivered and some were created and sent as long as three says ago. Does it take that long for Plesk Mail servers to deliver Emails? That should belong to the previous century, isn't it?

 

[Ales]

SMTP is quite resilient. When there is a transient error, or what looks like it could be a transient error, a message will wait in the queue and the delivery will be attempted later.

The fact that your messages are now getting delivered tells me that the issue should be fixed. It might have been the port... Are the deliveries reasonably fast now? Nearly instant, within minutes?

BTW, the waiting period and the amount of delivery retries, before the message is returned to the sender, can be configured. The defaults are usually not that bad, though.

 

[Edward A B]

SMTP is quite resilient. When there is a transient error, or what looks like it could be a transient error, a message will wait in the queue and the delivery will be attempted later.

The fact that your messages are now getting delivered tells me that the issue should be fixed. It might have been the port... Are the deliveries reasonably fast now? Nearly instant, within minutes?

BTW, the waiting period and the amount of delivery retries, before the message is returned to the sender, can be configured. The defaults are usually not that bad, though.

Hi Ales, thanks for your reply. The delivery speed is till problematic; I'm still seeing messages that were sent yesterday morning being delivered now. Let me ask you if this is possible. Can I configure my Plesk server in a way that the mail() scripts on my web pages can send mails via 1and1/Ionos mail servers rather than through my Plesk mail server? I presume the ionos mail servers might be quicker than the Plesk mail server. I'm pretty much a newbie with VPS, this being my first one.
Thanks

 

[Ales]

This kind of slowness is odd, unless you mail volume is very (and I mean very) high.

Is there anything in the /var/log/maillog that would explain the delays? Do you see messages destined for remote delivery lingering in your server's mail queue? How many messages are there in the queue..?

 

[Edward A B]

(1) Messages in queue: 103 deferred, 0 held, 0 incoming, 0 active, 0 corrupted, 103 total. I can see some messages are three days and 2 days old.

(2) Regarding the mail log, I'm unable to see that directory via the Plesk UI. I can only see a 'Logs' folder which seems to show only http requests.

 

[Ales]

You'll have to connect to your VPS using SSH to be able to see the /var/log/maillog.

Hundred or so messages in the queue is not a lot at all, if terms of how much is an average VPS capable of sending out. That's nothing, really.

Some of them might be waiting because of completely legitimate reasons but its hard to say without knowing more details...

But let me ask you, if you send a fresh message now, does it remain in the queue or does it get sent out almost immediately? If possible, test with a private mail recipient, not a Gmail/Yahoo/etc. one, perhaps a recipient you haven't yet sent an email to lately.

 

[mow]

Are there any bounces in the subscription user's mailbox?

 

[Edward A B]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all your ideas. I finally got things going good with my Plesk emails. I had to be sure my Plesk domain DNS records matched the DNS records on my IONOS (external) domain.

 

[schemer]

@Edward A B or anyone that can help, I have the same exact problem or very close to it, I am using Obsidian though with Ubuntu 2.0.x. When you said you matched the DNS records with the IONOS and Plesk could you elaborate on ho you did this? Di you take all the many DNS records from Plesk and add them to IONOS?
Thanks