I've got an odd problem and I really can't work out what is causing it. I have two
gentoo mailservers under my control, one is working fine (it seems) but the other is
just not getting mail out. I'm not even sure if this will be delivered until I see it
come back through the list.

According to my logs, the mails are being accepted without issue by the receiving MX,
but that is the last that will be seen of them. It's not happening for every mail, but
a lot. Recipients can be on BT Internet, gmail, or other (apparently) unrelated
providers.

All outgoing mail from this server is DKIM signed, in plaintext only. I've checked and
the IP of the server doesn't seem to be on any blacklists. There is correct reverse
dns for the server as well. I've owned the IP for around 7-8 years now and there's
never been a problem like this.

I've been scratching my head over this for a while now but haven't made any progress,
in fact it seems to be getting worse. A few days ago I found a free service
(unfortunately forgotten the name now) which will recieve an email from you and reply
with a complete breakdown of apparent authenticity, signing, spam score etc etc. It
was absolutely perfect for my test.

Both servers are running the current stable postfix and amavisd/clamav/spamassassin.

It looks to my uneducated brain that servers are accepting my mail and then silently
dropping it without telling me why. Some of the intended recipients have checked their
various spam folders and such but nothing shows up there either.

If anyone can shed some light on this I would be incredibly grateful, I'm having to
send quotes out through the post at the moment just to be sure they arrive

Many thanks

Matt

On Mon, Sep 05, 2011 at 04:48:31PM +0100, Matt Harrison wrote:
> I've got an odd problem and I really can't work out what is causing it. I have two
> gentoo mailservers under my control, one is working fine (it seems) but the other is
> just not getting mail out. I'm not even sure if this will be delivered until I see it
> come back through the list.
>
> According to my logs, the mails are being accepted without issue by the receiving MX,
> but that is the last that will be seen of them. It's not happening for every mail, but
> a lot. Recipients can be on BT Internet, gmail, or other (apparently) unrelated
> providers.
>
> All outgoing mail from this server is DKIM signed, in plaintext only. I've checked and
> the IP of the server doesn't seem to be on any blacklists. There is correct reverse
> dns for the server as well. I've owned the IP for around 7-8 years now and there's
> never been a problem like this.
>
> I've been scratching my head over this for a while now but haven't made any progress,
> in fact it seems to be getting worse. A few days ago I found a free service
> (unfortunately forgotten the name now) which will recieve an email from you and reply
> with a complete breakdown of apparent authenticity, signing, spam score etc etc. It
> was absolutely perfect for my test.
>
> Both servers are running the current stable postfix and amavisd/clamav/spamassassin.
>
> It looks to my uneducated brain that servers are accepting my mail and then silently
> dropping it without telling me why. Some of the intended recipients have checked their
> various spam folders and such but nothing shows up there either.
>
> If anyone can shed some light on this I would be incredibly grateful, I'm having to
> send quotes out through the post at the moment just to be sure they arrive

Well that one got through which is nice, and I just noticed that my servers time was
just over an hour off, even though ntp-client was running. Only noticed this thanks to
the threading in this list. My every day stuff doesn't get threaded (or posted back to
me) so I hadn't seen it before.

I've corrected the time and sent a couple of tests to previously not working addresses
and I'll see what happens.

Just a thought though, if for example, BT Internet was reject mail based on my clock
being so wrong, they'd do it for every customer...and they haven't. I don't know, I'm
out of ideas and pretty desperate now.

Thanks

Matt

On 09/05/2011 11:48 AM, Matt Harrison wrote:
> I've got an odd problem and I really can't work out what is causing it. I have two
> gentoo mailservers under my control, one is working fine (it seems) but the other is
> just not getting mail out. I'm not even sure if this will be delivered until I see it
> come back through the list.
>
> According to my logs, the mails are being accepted without issue by the receiving MX,
> but that is the last that will be seen of them. It's not happening for every mail, but
> a lot. Recipients can be on BT Internet, gmail, or other (apparently) unrelated
> providers.

Once the recipient server gives you the 250 OK response, the message is
its responsibility. There's nothing you can do after that point, and the
only person who can tell you what happened to the message is that
server's admin.


> All outgoing mail from this server is DKIM signed, in plaintext only. I've checked and
> the IP of the server doesn't seem to be on any blacklists. There is correct reverse
> dns for the server as well. I've owned the IP for around 7-8 years now and there's
> never been a problem like this.

It looks OK here, coming from the list. Can you send a message directly
to me? I'll check the logs to see if anything looks funny.

On Mon, Sep 05, 2011 at 02:16:08PM -0400, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
> On 09/05/2011 11:48 AM, Matt Harrison wrote:
> > I've got an odd problem and I really can't work out what is causing it. I have two
> > gentoo mailservers under my control, one is working fine (it seems) but the other is
> > just not getting mail out. I'm not even sure if this will be delivered until I see it
> > come back through the list.
> >
> > According to my logs, the mails are being accepted without issue by the receiving MX,
> > but that is the last that will be seen of them. It's not happening for every mail, but
> > a lot. Recipients can be on BT Internet, gmail, or other (apparently) unrelated
> > providers.
>
> Once the recipient server gives you the 250 OK response, the message is
> its responsibility. There's nothing you can do after that point, and the
> only person who can tell you what happened to the message is that
> server's admin.

Thats what I was afraid of. The thought of dealing with BT technical support is
depressing

> > All outgoing mail from this server is DKIM signed, in plaintext only. I've checked and
> > the IP of the server doesn't seem to be on any blacklists. There is correct reverse
> > dns for the server as well. I've owned the IP for around 7-8 years now and there's
> > never been a problem like this.
>
> It looks OK here, coming from the list. Can you send a message directly
> to me? I'll check the logs to see if anything looks funny.

On it's way in a second.

Many thanks

Matt

On 09/05/2011 02:21 PM, Matt Harrison wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 05, 2011 at 02:16:08PM -0400, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
>> On 09/05/2011 11:48 AM, Matt Harrison wrote:
>>> I've got an odd problem and I really can't work out what is causing it. I have two
>>> gentoo mailservers under my control, one is working fine (it seems) but the other is
>>> just not getting mail out. I'm not even sure if this will be delivered until I see it
>>> come back through the list.
>>>
>>> According to my logs, the mails are being accepted without issue by the receiving MX,
>>> but that is the last that will be seen of them. It's not happening for every mail, but
>>> a lot. Recipients can be on BT Internet, gmail, or other (apparently) unrelated
>>> providers.
>>
>> Once the recipient server gives you the 250 OK response, the message is
>> its responsibility. There's nothing you can do after that point, and the
>> only person who can tell you what happened to the message is that
>> server's admin.
>
> Thats what I was afraid of. The thought of dealing with BT technical support is
> depressing
>

I got the test message; everything looks perfect, sorry =)

On Mon, Sep 05, 2011 at 02:33:47PM -0400, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
> On 09/05/2011 02:21 PM, Matt Harrison wrote:
> > On Mon, Sep 05, 2011 at 02:16:08PM -0400, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
> >> On 09/05/2011 11:48 AM, Matt Harrison wrote:
> >>> I've got an odd problem and I really can't work out what is causing it. I have two
> >>> gentoo mailservers under my control, one is working fine (it seems) but the other is
> >>> just not getting mail out. I'm not even sure if this will be delivered until I see it
> >>> come back through the list.
> >>>
> >>> According to my logs, the mails are being accepted without issue by the receiving MX,
> >>> but that is the last that will be seen of them. It's not happening for every mail, but
> >>> a lot. Recipients can be on BT Internet, gmail, or other (apparently) unrelated
> >>> providers.
> >>
> >> Once the recipient server gives you the 250 OK response, the message is
> >> its responsibility. There's nothing you can do after that point, and the
> >> only person who can tell you what happened to the message is that
> >> server's admin.
> >
> > Thats what I was afraid of. The thought of dealing with BT technical support is
> > depressing
> >
>
> I got the test message; everything looks perfect, sorry =)

Well thanks for trying Michael. Tomorrow I will call up one of the providers and ask
them to check through logs and see whats going on. I'm hoping they'll oblige.

Many thanks

Matt

On 09/05/2011 02:38 PM, Matt Harrison wrote:
>>
>> I got the test message; everything looks perfect, sorry =)
>
> Well thanks for trying Michael. Tomorrow I will call up one of the providers and ask
> them to check through logs and see whats going on. I'm hoping they'll oblige.
>
> Many thanks
>
> Matt

Sure thing. For BT, I was able to find this:

http://business.forums.bt.com/t5/Email/Missing-emails-no-reply-from-support/td-p/27893

You'll probably need to have the recipient contact them, but at least it
looks like they *can* figure out what happened to a message if you call
them between hours 24 and 72 after it disappeared.

On Mon, Sep 05, 2011 at 02:45:18PM -0400, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
> On 09/05/2011 02:38 PM, Matt Harrison wrote:
> >>
> >> I got the test message; everything looks perfect, sorry =)
> >
> > Well thanks for trying Michael. Tomorrow I will call up one of the providers and ask
> > them to check through logs and see whats going on. I'm hoping they'll oblige.
> >
> > Many thanks
> >
> > Matt
>
> Sure thing. For BT, I was able to find this:
>
> http://business.forums.bt.com/t5/Email/Missing-emails-no-reply-from-support/td-p/27893
>
> You'll probably need to have the recipient contact them, but at least it
> looks like they *can* figure out what happened to a message if you call
> them between hours 24 and 72 after it disappeared.
>

Thanks again. Because BT Internet seem to have outsourced email to Yahoo, I was busy
following all the yahoo related email disappearances. I'll certainly give this a try
though.

Thanks

Matt