A valid address rejecting - any ideas why?

FunkyT · 11 Jul 2006 at 06:49

Subject: failure notice

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at mail.gmx.net.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<[email protected]>:
203.12.160.122_does_not_like_recipient./Remote_host_said:_550_5.7.1_<[email protected]>..._recipient_denied,_because_MX_10_'mx0.gmx.de.'_[213.165.64.100]_for_<[email protected]>_not_answering/Giving_up_on_203.12.160.122./

FunkyT · 11 Jul 2006 at 10:41

Thanks dude.

The tpg.com.au address receives mail from other addresses with no problems. It also sometimes accept mail from [email protected]!

A problem with the email server or DNS records at the remote end?

FunkyT · 11 Jul 2006 at 13:09

Thanks very much for the helpful replies.

Any idea what would be the best way to address this problem?

FunkyT · 11 Jul 2006 at 13:23

It seems to be an intermittent problem but has happened a few times now...

FunkyT · 11 Jul 2006 at 13:54

bitslice said:
...not sure if I'd reading this correctly (bit busy at 'mo)
"203.12.160.122_does_not_like_recipient,"
that's your ISP....?

No, that's the ISP in Australia I'm trying to send to.

bitslice said:
try emailing the rejection email to [email protected]
and [email protected]

I did that. Here's their reply:

There seems to be an issue with the recipients incoming mail server (mx0.gmx.de) based on the error message that you have provided below. I have tried connecting to the said server through telnet and it failed. You may try at a later time or get in touch with the recipient to confirm if there are indeed issues on their end.

bitslice said:
try adding your send address in the "from" field when sending

this could also be some antispam policy gone wonky

Unfortunately that didn't work

FunkyT · 12 Jul 2006 at 09:50

This is a helpful response I received from a friend:

a mater said:
It looks like the mail server you're sending to is configured to reject incoming emails from IP addresses which
don't have reverse DNS.

From my own experience I can easily confirm that many e-mail servers on the Internet are configured to reject incoming e-mails from any IP address which doesn't have reverse DNS.

Probably the DNS responsible for your domain doesn't have a reverse record and this is the problem.

We had that kind of configuration on our Domino server several months ago to protect from SPAM. This is not a solution because many DNS servers don't have reverse DNS records so we we're not just blocking SPAM. We switched this off and installed a SPAM ASSASSIN on our SMTP gateway on Postfix.

I don't understand how it's possible you can sometimes send a message to this address... that is very strange. It looks like the destination mail server's administrator is switching off checking reverse DNS from time to time.

I am 99% sure this is a reverse DNS problem on your ISP's DNS server. Don't worry, we have the same problem in our company, we changed ISP a few days ago and they don't have reverse DNS either!

FunkyT · 12 Jul 2006 at 11:14

tolien said:
It won't be the DNS server responsible for your domain either, it'll be whoever has control over your IP's rDNS - your ISP most likely.

My ISP is Nildram but I'm sending this email via gmx.net - so it's Nildram at fault?

FunkyT · 17 Jul 2006 at 12:14

Thanks lads.