All Mail Bouncing

[whking]

Hello,

I am a reseller on 75.127.*.86 and since today morning All mails were bounce back (to gmail, yahoo, live....every free and business class mail accounts)

All clients are complaining (over 100 Domains, can you guess the pressure... )

When I check this I found that the server IP 75.127.*.86 has badly BLACKLISTED (www.dnsstuff.com)

Have you got this problem on this server ?
Waiting to support reply ...? If i can't fix this, then all clients will eat me tomorrow...

[Alan B]

You said mail is bouncing back, but you did not indicate where it bounces from. Is this incoming mail to your server that bounces back to sender? Or, is this mail sent from your WHB server that bounces back to you because of the blacklist?

If it is the latter, then the first step is to report this to Support. They will investigate to find the source of the problem on the server, then they will contact the blacklists to request removal.

Unfortunately, blacklisting happens periodically for shared servers. Likely someone on your server was sending spam, or had a high-volume mailer sending uncontrolled amounts of mail in a short time. Because all senders on a shared server share the same mail server IP, when that spammer gets blacklisted so does everyone else on the server.

In the meantime, I suggest that you tell your clients to set their ISP's SMTP server for outgoing mail, thus bypassing any blacklist issues with the WHB server. IMHO, it's better to have your clients always use their ISP's SMTP server for outgoing mail.

[whking]

Hi

Tks for the info

Actualy all clients on my reseller account use mail.theirdomainnmae.tld as there SMTP / POP3 mail servers

All emails bounce back, those sent from domains on my Reseller account on WHB server which has the 75.127.*.86 IP

But How can I bypass the WHB SMTP server (what should I use in SMTP server box when configuring on Outlook express?

Yes, I know if someone send SPAM and then there will be IP block of the server affected to all clients. Anyway i have few reseller account with other providers for long time but I don't see such a huge problem as this

[Alan B]

Actualy all clients on my reseller account use mail.theirdomainnmae.tld as there SMTP / POP3 mail servers

Right, that's what I said. You and your clients use your WHB server's SMTP. All those client domain names point to the same server, using the same mail server IP.

But How can I bypass the WHB SMTP server (what should I use in SMTP server box when configuring on Outlook express?

As I wrote: tell your clients to set their ISP's SMTP server for outgoing mail.

[whking]

I ve changed the SMTP mail server from mail.domain.tld to the ISPs SMTP server, but when try to sending emails it has poping up the "mail Account username" & "Password" box.

I think because the ISPs mailservers don't have email accounts such as mine (on WHB) and they failed to authenticate it. Isn't it?

So what should i do for this?

[Alan B]

You would enter your WHB mail account's username and password, as your mail client is asking for those. If that doesn't work, please provide a more detailed description of what you are using and what you are doing.

[whking]

I am using Outlook Expres and try to send an email from admin@mydomainname.tld (to yahoo, gmail...) , which is on the WHB servers

Following are the mail settings

Email / Username : admin@mydomainname.tld
Pass : xxxx
POP3.mail server : mail.mydomainname.tld
SMTP : myISPs_SMTP_mail_Server
PORT : 25
*** My server required Quthentication : ON

1) With Above settings it keeping popping up the Username / Password box. (Given user / pass are correct)

*** My server required Quthentication : OFF

2) With this change it says,

Server response 554 <admin@mydomainname.tld> Sender address rejected. access Denied, Port 25 .....

* Also tried with port 26, but not success

[Alan B]

“My server requires authentication” is checked only if your ISP requires it. I believe it is required for WHB's SMTP servers, but many ISPs do not require it.

Make sure you are entering your correct username and password. Copy and paste them, do not just type them as that's when people make errors. They are case-sensitive.

It's possible that your ISP requires POP before SMTP or SMTP after POP, which would mean that you'd have to check a POP account at your ISP to be allowed to send outgoing via their SMTP.

It's also possible that your ISP does not allow you to send mail unless the FROM address exists at the ISP, e.g. you@BigISP.com.

Sending outgoing mail from an ISP's SMTP server is usually a pretty simple affair. However, there are several methods of authentication or permission that they could use. I suggest that you contact your ISP or check their help pages to lean their required settings for sending mail.

[Matt R.]

If we get blacklisted and you notice it before our feedback loop comes in, let us know and we can change the ip or work with the blacklist.

[Alan B]

I suggested in my first post that he contact Support, but I don't know if he ever did.

[whking]

Actually my web (reseller) and all client accounts (nearly 100) use the Server IP. No dedicated IP.

So as the provider, you will know the blacklist incident to your server IPs, before we send the Tickets. Isn't it?

Anyway now most of email sending ok but it takes aroun 3 days to solve this.

Also the IP is on 5 Blacklists (Previousely it is on 7 BL) according to www.dnsstuff.com. Is it possible you te remove the ip from those BLs?
(Because anytime it will cause the problem)

For the support ticket : Yes, First I send the support ticket and it takes long time to get a reply

[Lena S.]

If you have already submitted a ticket on this issue please give us a ticket ID and we will try to speed up the process.
If your IP is backlisted, the best thing to do is also to contact our technicians and they will take measures to remove it from blacklist.

[whking]

Yes that's right.
But this is not only belongs to me and i think there are many resellers on this account.
And at the moment the problem has solved. But the SERVER IP is on 5 Blacklists at the moment. I think it is too high (or abnormal) Isn't it?
(Anyway i am not an expert to tell exactly, but my other reseller accounts don't have such a result)

So it is very good if you can remove the server ip from those blacklists too. I think all resellers on this server agree with me.

[Alan B]

Sometimes you may know about the blacklisting before Support does. That's why I suggested that the first step is to report this to Support. They will investigate to find the source of the problem on the server, then they will contact the blacklists to request removal. Support does not have the power to directly remove the IP from the blacklist. Support must request removal from each list, after first suspending the problem account.

No, it is not abnormal. It is undesireable, but not abnormal on shared hosting. Unfortunately, blacklisting happens periodically for shared servers. Likely someone on your server was sending spam, or had a high-volume mailer sending uncontrolled amounts of mail in a short time. Because all senders on a shared server share the same mail server IP, when that spammer gets blacklisted so does everyone else on the server.

That's why I suggested that you tell your clients to set their ISP's SMTP server for outgoing mail, thus bypassing any blacklist issues with the WHB server. IMHO, it's better to have your clients always use their ISP's SMTP server for outgoing mail.

[bmcc81]

To fix my outgoing email settings I had to go to my internet service provider and check what the SMTP outgoing settings where.

I find it strange, because before I never had to do this. Must be a new thing.

However for outgoing mail server for Videotron (Mtl service provider) it was:
relais.videotron.ca

I attached photos if anyone would like to see the important things that I changed.

- bmcc81

[JamesFu]

In the meantime, I suggest that you tell your clients to set their ISP's SMTP server for outgoing mail, thus bypassing any blacklist issues with the WHB server. IMHO, it's better to have your clients always use their ISP's SMTP server for outgoing mail.

Hi Alan,

I'm new to this forum despite having had an account here for 1.5 years now. I see you're very helpful here and hope you can shed some light on this problem I'm facing that WHB Support wasn't able to resolve.

I have some forms on my sites that need to send emails. These sites all have "A" records pointing to WHB but "MX" records pointing to Google Apps. I ran into a series of problems along the way:

1. "From" email not of a domain hosted here.
2. Changed "From" email to one of a domain hosted here, but delivery fails when "To" email IS one of a domain hosted here.
3. Support advised me to set up a mail.domain.com subdomain and email accounts (*@mail.domain.com) matching those used in my "From" field. This was not an option for me due to the sheer number of domains I host and subdomains and mail accounts I'll need to set up, not to mention the unreliability of "Reply-To" header to ensure recipient replies to the correct address, setting up email forwarding in *@mail.domain.com to *@domain.com, blah, blah...
4. Next I tried to send the mails by authenticated SMTP socket connections using php PEAR through Gmail's servers, but got a connection timeout error which Support confirms was due to blocking of socket connections for "security reasons".

I was just wondering if what you said about using "ISP's SMTP server" referred to php scripts or the users' email clients? And if it's the former, how did you circumvent the "security" policy?

Here's a link to my codes and thank you so much for your time.

Best regards,
James Fu

[Alan B]

Your ISP's SMTP server has absolutely nothing to do with outgoing mail sent from forms on your WHB-hosted web site.

WHB mail security policies won't allow you in a a form mailer to specify a FROM address that is not hosted here. That's why you saw those failures.

If you send TO a domain that is hosted here, Exim (server mail transport) will deliver the mail locally without leaving the server. Since you have those domains' Mx hosted at Google, you should request Support to remove those domains from the localdomains list. That will allow the messages to be sent off the server and handled by Google. If you have a Reseller account, you can change settings yourself to accomplish this.

[JamesFu]

Hey Alan,

Thanks for your reply. My ISP's SMTP server will have a lot to do with outgoing mail from forms if I sent it out using my ISP's email account credentials in an authenticated SMTP socket connection, no?

That said, I think you managed to answer my question, so thanks a lot!

So for posterity, if anyone has trouble sending out mail "To" a domain whose "A" record resolves here, but "MX" record points elsewhere, just delete the "MX" entries here!

Best,
James

[Alan B]

Thanks for your reply. My ISP's SMTP server will have a lot to do with outgoing mail from forms if I sent it out using my ISP's email account credentials in an authenticated SMTP socket connection, no?

No. The form is on your WHB server. The form initiates a request to send outgoing mail from your WHB server. Your ISP has nothing to do with it.

So for posterity, if anyone has trouble sending out mail "To" a domain whose "A" record resolves here, but "MX" record points elsewhere, just delete the "MX" entries here!

No. Don't mis-state what I wrote. If the DNS Zone is hosted here, you still need Mx entries, otherwise mail will fail.

[tanyaspin]

If it is the latter, then the first step is to report this to Support. They will investigate to find the source of the problem on the server, then they will contact the blacklists to request removal.