Problem sending to remote sites

[enazareno]

Hello,

I am setting up JBCS 1.04 final for production use. My basic requirement is sending email alerts to remote sites like Yahoo and Hotmail, etc (NOT for spamming). The server is running on Linux Fedora. My DB is MySQL 5.0. In our development, there seems to be no problem. However, when I set it up in production (which is a different site btw), there is no guarantee that the mail arrives. I always get the mail is deferred error, but sometimes it is sent successfully. Sometimes it is sent at least a day after. Most of the time it does not. I am quite a newbie to setting up my own email server, and I don't know which to go. How do I check for the logs? We have setup our DNS, and provided some MX entries. Are we not configuring it correctly, Is it the network or is it something blocking our emails. I would appreciate if somebody can show me the light.

Another observation. If I send email the first time, it does not arrive. When I successively send emails of the same address, the first ones in the queue seems to get delivered. But I am not sure if this is a conclusive observation since I am only sending to Yahoo. Is there a known bug like this or is it an anti-spamming thing? Thanks

Regards,

Elmo

[gohip]

I posted to your other thread, and you might also read in this forum, while it's still small ; ), for questions regarding mail servers marking your emails as spam.

[enazareno]

Thanks for the quick reply. I am quite confused where i am posting my threads - is it this one for users or is the developers forum the correct one?

Regarding my problem, what do you suggest ? There are a lot of factors and I know configuration mostly is the culprit, but i might not be testing correctly. I am also doubting it is a spamming issue, but if it were spam, why are some mails delivered? Network issue perhaps? Any topics you could point me to? Would appreciate it. Thanks.

Regards,

Elmo

[acoliver]

You most likely need to set up the SPF entries in DNS as well as reverse DNS in addition to the pre-requisite MX records. This will reduce instances of false positives on spam. Unfortunately both Hotmail and Yahoo have signed on to the "SPF" "standard". We will increase support for it even though it is a very bad standard and the only reason it is effective at all is that it has not been fully deployed. However as you have noticed it has a high incidence of false positives. Moving "security" from one insecure (SMTP) internet subsystem to another one (DNS) is not the answer. Once we have implemented SPF for ourselves I'll be more specific in my criticism of it.

-Andy

[acoliver]

Also make sure that your host/ip/domain are not listed on any of the popular blacklists (as open relays etc). Google on "email blacklist" "open relay list" and you'll find a number of them.

[enazareno]

Hi Andy.

Thanks for the reply. Sorry I was not able to respond bec. we had a 1 day holiday here. Anyway, I will check on SPF first and see what I can find. BTW, does this by any chance, solve also my problem of getting my sent mail to Yahoo's Inbox folder instead of the Bulk folder? I've tried setting an MX record which points to our server. Should I need to add also Yahoo, and all the other servers in the MX or not? Most of my problems I have encountered are not related to JBCS in itself, but by the configuration and all that DNS stuff. JBCS, is a great addition to the JBoss stack, but we need to get it working properly first to enjoy it even if the problem is outside the scope of JBCS.

We focus on developing apps in Jboss, and usually right now, you can't get away with email cause clients always want to get notified for some reasons. We don't have this problem with some beacuse they already have their mail servers and we just simply connect to it. Howver there are those who don't, and I think including this in our apps is really a big plus but is a big headache right now cause email already becomes our responsibility, that we end up researching a lot on email. Anyway, no pain - no gain. So, we're really no email experts who need to learn fast. I'm just glad that you have a supportive group. I hope though I can get this soon, or else I'll be wading in deep water.

PS: My wish - Having a JBCS configuration that immediately works wihtout tinkering with the DNS, MX and all the related stuff regardless of OS, is it wishful thinking, or is it possible? I don't even mind if you include OS specific libraries if it can't be done with Java alone, but if it can be done, I think it would be great. Or a docu for email for dummies, like me, would be quite helpful. (i.e., in the context of JBCS). Thanks again for your time.


Regards,

Elmo