Exchange Server

ESI · Guest

I am NOT an IT Professional. I just try to do my best as our company IT
person. (someone has to do it). We use Windows server 2003 for small
business. We Use MS Exchange v 6.5 Build 7638.2 Service Pack 2. Our company
can not send email to yahoo.com or aol.com addresses. The company that setup
our server said " We don’t handle your dns configuration, this is something
you have to take up with Interland. However, the dns report is just flagging
generic issues that will not cause you any harm and is not causing you any
problems. What I believe is happening is the dns server at ESI is having an
issue with dns lookups at your end. There is a tweak we can do to help it
correctly work with aol and yahoo mail providers. It takes about 30 minutes
to implement. Is this something I can do? I do know my way around some
things and am learning all I can. Can some nice soul out there shed some
light on my agonies?

Dan J.S. · Guest

"ESI" <ESI@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3C4D5C0B-DD8D-499E-8B18-FB3A4298E0BB@microsoft.com...

ESI · Guest

I went to www.dnsreport.com and our reverse dns is ok. That I would assume
handles the ptr question and A record. I typed esi-extrusion.com in the
domain and all things look ok minus a few misc errors.

"Dan J.S." wrote:

Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP · Guest

You have a PTR record, but it does not map to your MX record. If a
receiving mail server is doing a reverse-DNS lookup, then the PTR record
will not match the name that the server says it is and could cause the
connection to be rejected.

Do you have a static IP address, or is this a dynamic IP? If it's a dynamic
IP, then you won't have any control over this. If static, you can ask your
ISP to modify the PTR record to map back to mail.esi-extrusion.com, but
whether they do this is up to them. AOL and Yahoo usually don't accept mail
from IP's that are in dynamic pools.

Can you send outgoing mail through your ISP as a SmartHost?

--
Ben Winzenz
Exchange MVP
MessageOne
Read my blog!
http://winzenz.blogspot.com
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"ESI" <ESI@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:AF1895BF-9FCD-4F25-9D20-6F54A6DC7AC5@microsoft.com...

ESI · Guest

When we switched from Interland hosting our email to hosting our own, it was
quite a feat to get them to understand what needed changed, as I remember our
server IT person had to walk them thru it. Quite conceiveably they didn't do
it correctly.

We do have a static ip for our Exchange Server. SBC is our ISP and our
website is hosted by Interland currently. I want to be sure, I am asking SBC
to re-map our ptr record back to esi-extrusion.com and not interland?

I'm do not know what Smarthost is. I'm sorry. I'm going to do a search and
read up on it shortly.

I know people in general don't like to help newbies or generally stupid
people thrust into a position by their company. If I get this all worked out,
just know that someone will think your a hero.

"Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP]" wrote:

Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP · Guest

You would be asking your ISP to map the PTR record for the IP address back
to mail.esi-extrusion.net. It needs to match the name of the sending
server. Note that your ISP may not be willing to do this. It isn't an
unreasonable request, but some ISP's won't do it.

A Smarthost simply means that instead of your server directly connecting to
the target server, you will forward all mail to your ISP first, and your ISP
will do the actual delivery of the mail. ISP's typically will allow their
customers to do this.

Did the company that setup your server indicate what the tweak was?
Regardless, if you are able to resolve MX records for yahoo and aol, it
won't be a problem with your DNS server.

--
Ben Winzenz
Exchange MVP
MessageOne
Read my blog!
http://winzenz.blogspot.com
http://feeds.feedburner.com/winzenz (RSS Feed)

"ESI" <ESI@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3645EA9A-C86D-4FCD-945D-85F36E1E948A@microsoft.com...

ESI · Guest

Oh how wonderful, gosh it gets harder and harder to get people to do
something these days.

I just finished reading that on a website. I also checked for open relay
blacklisting. Were not on one. I am going to do some checking to make sure we
are not an open SMTP relay.

They did not specify what the tweak was. Presumably they figured I would
research it and do the work myself, and save the $225/hr. You have been a
tremendous help and I really do want to say THANK YOU. I am going to continue
investigating as I have a bit more knowledge thanks to you. I have a request
in to our ISP, they will respond in 24-48 hours.

"Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP]" wrote:

ESI · Guest

The ISP has re-directed the ptr record back to the mail.esi-extrusion.com. I
went to the reverse dns on dnsstuff.com and it apparently is working. I still
cannot send email to yahoo or aol accounts. When I put in esi-extrusion.com
in dnsreport.com checker, it still shows the same errors. I don't know what
else to change . Any ideas?

"Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP]" wrote:

ESI · Guest

Wow that's about the most impressive thing I have seen in some time. You
certainly have some serious knowledge. I went through the spf wizard and
obviously did some thing wrong. I'll work and read on that some more. I'm
just concerned that we can't send email to some companies. The list is
growing everyday. Such companies include Tempest Inc., info@ifmefector.com,
info@reikuna.com, and all the yahoo and aol accounts. I'm going to strat
trolling the web for undeliverable issues. Maybe something will turn up. I
appreciate your help, you sure impressed me.

"Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP]" wrote:

Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP · Guest

You can ignore the Warning on the mail server host name in greeting. That
only applies to inbound mail. The cause is that you have a Cisco PIX with
the Mailguard feature turned on. You don't need it enabled, and it can
potentially cause problems with other mail systems trying to send mail to
you, but it won't cause the problem of not being able to send mail to yahoo
or aol. If you want to get rid of that warning, then disable Mailguard on
your PIX.

You may want to registry SPF records, as dnsreport suggests. Looks like
they have a wizard that walks you through how to set up the SPF record. SPF
records are registered as TXT records (versus say A or MX records).

--
Ben Winzenz
Exchange MVP
MessageOne
Read my blog!
http://winzenz.blogspot.com
http://feeds.feedburner.com/winzenz (RSS Feed)

"ESI" <ESI@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0533A4AD-1D3B-4BED-8C78-FE95AFAAB5EF@microsoft.com...

ESI · Guest

Well I went thru the spf wizard again and I get:
v=spf1 mx ~all

I put it right where they show to put it, does it take a period of time
before the internet catches up to the change?

"Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP]" wrote:

Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP · Guest

Any DNS changes can take up to 48 hours (or so) to filter down to all DNS
servers. It largely depends on the TTL and expire time for your zone.

Here's the thing though. Not having an SPF record should *not* cause
connections to be rejected. Companies that reject based on missing SPF
records are likely the same ones that reject connections because of missing
(or incorrect) PTR (reverse DNS) records. It's absolutely irresponsible to
block solely on those criteria. Should they be used as criteria for whether
a message is marked as spam? Absolutely. But not as a sole determining
factor.

--
Ben Winzenz
Exchange MVP
MessageOne
Read my blog!
http://winzenz.blogspot.com
http://feeds.feedburner.com/winzenz (RSS Feed)

"ESI" <ESI@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:447CBCDD-26DA-4E9E-8677-F7E0DE371EF6@microsoft.com...

ESI · Guest

Well I'm still on a quest to send email to aol and yahoo. Your suggestion to
add an SPF record applies to our domain hosted by interland. I sent them a
ticket request for that addition. Their servers do not support that:

Unfortunately, at this time, we are unable to create an SPF record for the
domain. This is not supported by our servers.

I contacted AOL and they wanted me to submit our IP to there whitelist. I
didn't see any harm in that, although perplexed as to why I had to. That
request was approved. Still no email going through.

I enabled logging of the exchange server. I look at the log, I see where the
user sent an email, just not quite sure what else in the maze of gobbledygook
listed shows errors or what not. I get a 4.4.7 error in the returned email.
Does that help?

"Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP]" wrote:

Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP · Guest

Interland is a bunch of morons then. SPF records are DNS resource records
of type TXT. If they don't know how to do that, and want to cop out and say
their servers don't support it (which I'd submit is a load of crap), they
don't deserve to be a hosting provider, or at least don't deserve your
business. RFC 1035 (http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1035.html) defines DNS
resource record types, which include TXT. Since it was submitted in, oh,
1987!, saying their servers doesn't support creating TXT records is
nonsense, unless their server is totally non-RFC compliant, in which case,
again, they should not be a hosting provider. You might try getting ahold
of one of their senior network folks. In many cases, the level 1 folks
aren't real bright when it comes to dealing with stuff like that.

AOL adding your IP to *their* whitelist shouldn't be a big deal. It's on
their end, not yours. I would have been more than suspicious if they had
asked you to add their server to your whitelist, though :-)

You enabled logging means......you enabled SMTP Protocol logging? If so,
make sure that you enabled all the advanced logging options. If you can't
interpret what it is saying (which is ok), please post the relevant section
of the smtp log that shows the conversation between your server and AOL's
server.

--
Ben Winzenz
Exchange MVP
MessageOne
Read my blog!
http://winzenz.blogspot.com
http://feeds.feedburner.com/winzenz (RSS Feed)

"ESI" <ESI@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
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