We are getting a percentage of "Not configured to relay" rejections when we send out
our newsletters. I rent a Cloud Server from 1&1 where I run our.nonprofit.com and a couple of others.
Most recipients' MTAs produce no such rejections ... is it an issue with our exim's setup or their MTA's setup?
I'd be very grateful for the benefit of greater experience than mine as I am about to go live
with another nonprofit client's website with a much larger set of newsletter recipients.
Best regards - iain Houston
Some diagnostic data:
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Our HELO, Return-path, and Envelope-from values are what I expect, namely "our.nonprofit.com".
But somehow "our.rented.server.com" is coming into the equation
although I don't see this when I do:
swaks -f webmaster@??? -t rejecting.user@??? -tls -s localhost
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This shows how our server is set up:
$uname -a && hostname -f'
Linux our.server.machine.com 3.0.0-17-server #30-Ubuntu ...
our.server.machine.com
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This shows the IP Address and Reverse DNS of the rented machine::
$host 222.222.222.222
222.222.222.222.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer our.rented.server.com.
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I have no control over /etc/hosts as 1&1 reconstruct it on boot
$cat /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
222.222.222.222 our.rented.server.com our
222.222.222.222 another.rented.server.com
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This is a typical problem mail rejection message:
rejecting.user@??? R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp:
SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<rejecting.user@???>:
host mailgw.rejecting.com [111.111.111.111]: 501 This
system is not configured to relay mail (r) from <newsletter@???>
to <rejecting.user@???> for our.rented.server.com
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This is extracted about the only server-specific parameter from exim -bP
primary_hostname = our.server.machine.com
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our.nonprofit.com's DNS has valid SPF and DKIM TXT records:
our.server.machine.com is an SPF-designated server for our.nonprofit.com,
(although our.rented.server is not - but are they raising and SPF error?) hence:
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Summary of Port 25 Results
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SPF check: pass
DomainKeys check: neutral
DKIM check: pass
Sender-ID check: pass
SpamAssassin check: ham
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Details:
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HELO hostname: our.server.machine.com
Source IP: 222.222.222.222
mail-from: webmaster@???
...
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