Delivery Status Notification (Failure) (SPF related) to virginmedia.com

[jimothy]

I really hope someone can help with this error I'm experiencing at the moment. Any email we send from our network to virginmedia.com bounces back with a Delivery Status Notification (Failure).

 

First of all the error was showing that there was no spf record for our domain. So I went through the spf wizard at SPF: Project Overview and set up a spf record and attached it to our DNS records for our domain.

 

If I query spf on our domain I get the following result:

 

Found v=spf1 record for concordcollege.org.uk
v=spf1 ip4:217.33.138.66/28 ip4:194.72.6.62/14 a:smtp.bt.net ~all 

 

I've got a couple of IPs in there as we use our own mail server and bt's smtp relay, I've also included the DNS for BT's smtp servers.

 

Now when I send an email to virginmedia.com I still get a Delivery Status Notification (Failure) but this time it tells me that the spf entry passed!!??

 

Received: by 10.216.86.213 with SMTP id w63mr3069183wee.71.1256717429111;
       Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:10:29 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: 
Received: from smtp2.bt.net (smtp.bt.net [217.35.209.166])
       by mx.google.com with ESMTP id i34si2564456gve.23.2009.10.28.01.10.28;
       Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:10:29 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of James.Sumnall at concordcollege.org.uk designates 217.35.209.166 as permitted sender) client-ip=217.35.209.166;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of James.Sumnall at concordcollege.org.uk designates 217.35.209.166 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=James.Sumnall at concordcollege.org.uk
Received: from [217.33.138.66] (helo=mail.concordcollege.org.uk)
by insmtp21 with esmtp (Exim 4.50)
id 1N33bv-0000iP-Sm
for [email protected]; Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:10:27 +0000
Content-class: urn:content-classes:message
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01CA57A6.1BC680BF"
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5

 

Has anyone have any experience of this problem or how I go about solving as I've hit a deadend.

 

Thanks,

 

Jim

[powdarrmonkey]

Please post the rest of the rejection email. That snippet doesn't give any reasons.

[jimothy]

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

    [email protected]

  ----- Original message -----

Received: by 10.216.86.213 with SMTP id w63mr3069183wee.71.1256717429111;
       Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:10:29 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: 
Received: from smtp2.bt.net (smtp.bt.net [217.35.209.166])
       by mx.google.com with ESMTP id i34si2564456gve.23.2009.10.28.01.10.28;
       Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:10:29 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of James.Sumnall at concordcollege.org.uk designates 217.35.209.166 as permitted sender) client-ip=217.35.209.166;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of James.Sumnall at concordcollege.org.uk designates 217.35.209.166 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=James.Sumnall at concordcollege.org.uk
Received: from [217.33.138.66] (helo=mail.concordcollege.org.uk)
by insmtp21 with esmtp (Exim 4.50)
id 1N33bv-0000iP-Sm
for [email protected]; Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:10:27 +0000
Content-class: urn:content-classes:message
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01CA57A6.1BC680BF"
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5
Subject: testing spf from concord
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:10:26 -0000
Message-ID: 
X-MS-Has-Attach: 
X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: 
Thread-Topic: testing spf from concord
thread-index: AcpXphtSIUuFPb45T7qa9ts+divp9Q==
From: "Sumnall, Mr J" 
To: 

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

------_=_NextPart_001_01CA57A6.1BC680BF
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

=20

=20

  ----- Message truncated -----

 

Thanks for the reply.

[powdarrmonkey]

Still doesn't give a reason, typical Virgin... phone them if you feel brave, or try testing the smtp conversation with this guide (the server you want is aspmx.l.google.com).

 

Edit: could be that you don't seem to have reverse DNS set up on your public IP.

[Domino]

Could just be you've gotta wait for it to realise you're now okay.

 

Have you checked to see if you're on any blacklists?

[jimothy]

Edit: could be that you don't seem to have reverse DNS set up on your public IP.

 

I've just checked our public IP (217.33.138.66) for reverse DNS and it resolves to smtp.concordcollege.org.uk, that should be ok? or should it just be our top level domain omitting the smtp part?

[jimothy]

Could just be you've gotta wait for it to realise you're now okay.

 

Have you checked to see if you're on any blacklists?

 

Just checked blacklists and we don't appear on any of them... The last change I made to the spf record was yesterday, so it could be taking the full 48 hours to update?

[powdarrmonkey]

It should match your helo:

 

Received: from [217.33.138.66] (helo=mail.concordcollege.org.uk)

 

Looks like virgin just aren't reporting it.

 

(oooh, digging around at your domain: I used to work for UK2 haven't seen an ultra dns record for years!)

[powdarrmonkey]

Just checked blacklists and we don't appear on any of them... The last change I made to the spf record was yesterday, so it could be taking the full 48 hours to update?

 

Your DNS time-to-live is 24 hours, so you should be clear by now. And besides, the right SPF flags show up in the NDR, so that's not the problem.

[jimothy]

It should match your helo:

 

 

 

Looks like virgin just aren't reporting it.

 

(oooh, digging around at your domain: I used to work for UK2 haven't seen an ultra dns record for years!)

 

We've been with UK2 for years and years, even before I started work here!

 

The helo is set it Exchange's Default Virtual SMTP server right?, I remember setting this to mail.concordcollege.org.uk. Is this what virginmedia.com are receiving?

[powdarrmonkey]

Correct.

 

Really, though, I think you need to get in touch with Virgin and find out definitively why it's bouncing; this is mostly just 'mail servers commonly reject when...'.

[jimothy]

Brilliant! Thanks for all the help. I'll put on my brave face and try Virgin.