[Gllug] How can I make sure my email is not treated as spam?

[Doug Winter]

On Sat 01 Mar Adrian McMenamin wrote:
> I then changed the name of the box to mailrelay.myorganisation.org.uk
> (names have been changed, but myorganisation.org.uk is a real domain,
> but mailrelay is not a "real" subdomain).
> 
> This seemed to work for many of the mail relays that were previously
> bouncing the emails, but not all.

Some (broken IMO) sites look for an entry in the reverse DNS when they
get an SMTP connection, and reject you if you don't have one, or even if
the forward and reverse DNS don't match.  For all email to get through
you need to ensure your machine has a proper entry in the reverse DNS.

The other option is to use your ISPs outgoing mailserver as a smarthost.
Obviously it's better to avoid depending on it if you can, but this is a
straightforward solution.

To get an entry in the reverse DNS, if you have a fixed CIDR range of IP
addresses (which it sounds like you have), you will have to get your ISP
to delegate the appropriate part of the in-addr.ARPA domain, as per
RFC2317.  This can be a bit fiddly, as ISPs have some latitude on naming
of delegated domains.  Your ISP should be able to provide instructions.

Alternatively, your ISP might be willing to host the individual PTR
record for you.  You probably want to drop them an email, and hope
whoever receives it knows what they are talking about :)

Cheers,

Doug.

-- 
http://www.britishsteal.com                             doug at pigeonhold.com
key 1024D/6973E2CF print 2C95 66AD 1596 37D2 41FC  609F 76C0 A4EC 6973 E2CF
...computing's central challenge, "How not to make a mess of it," has not
been met.  -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, March 2001
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