Improperly configured E-mail servers:

If you want to start a fight, say to whomever administers the E-mail servers you use: "Your E-mail services are misconfigured!"

Unfortunately, it's quite common, because it's not easy to properly set up E-mail services. Several years ago, being able to reliably send E-mail was of top concern. That goal has now taken a back seat to reducing UCE, (Spam). Often, mail from a misconfigured E-mail server will work just fine for 95% of the people it's being sent to. As time goes by, this percentage will surely drop as less tolerance for spam increases.

Basically, here are the rules for disassociated E-mail servers to properly talk to one another:

  • The remote mail server must connect and intoduce itself.
  • The introduction must be a proper Fully Qualified Domain Name.
  • The FQDN given must exist in DNS.
  • The IP address of the FQDN given must be the IP address it's connecting from.
  • The server's IP address must not be a globally black-listed server for being an open relay or spammer.

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    Common mistakes are:

  • Not reading or understanding RFC-2821 before setting up E-mail services. You have no business operating an E-mail server on the Internet if you've not read and fully understand this document!

  • Simply throwing an E-mail server on a DSL connection, without coordinating with the ISP who controls the DNS and it's address space.

  • Not understanding the SMTP protocol and using an E-mail address, the wrong name, or some arbitrary or bogus name for the server.

  • DNS not matching the real name for the server. Often caused by one IT department not coordinating properly with the other. Read: RFC-1035 to fully understand DNS, and RFC-974 to understand the requirements E-mail has on DNS. This link does a good job explaining.

  • Not configuring the DNS reverse Zone for the address space that's been allocated.

  • Correcting the above, (and other) problems and not un-blacklisting your server. If you've corrected problems, make sure your mail server is not still blacklisted. Check out: SORBS to insure your server's reputation is clean.

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    Discovery Networks, Inc., operates fully RFC compliant E-mail services and solutions.