Not able to receive email from certain domains.

Hi jason15025,

Thanks for posting the domain - that helps :-)

Take a look at www.dnsreport.com and see what it says about your domain - http://www.dnsreport.com/tools/dnsreport.ch?domain=jeffersonregional.com

Nothing particularly worrying.  It would be worth making sure that the DNS name matches the name that Exchange is reporting.
It looks like the MX for your domain is 10 MAIL.jeffersonregional.com. IP=141.158.86.173]

Your "PTR" record (reverse DNS) returns jrmail1.jeffersonregional.com.
I suggest that you change that to "mail.jeffersonregional.com." - or change the MX record to match :-)

You could do to change your SMTP greeting on Exchange to match your DNS entry.  Info on that at : https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21130164/How-do-I-get-proper-DNS-name-response-from-Exchange-2000.html

Also, your domain doesn't seem to be accepting mail for "postmaster".  That could do to be fixed.

Anyway, that doesn't really answer your question :-)

We'll need to know why the sender(s) can't send you emails.  They'll be getting an NDR back, can you get hold of a copy of one of these and post it?

Sembee: I must be getting the hang of this to be giving similar answers to you :-)

Ok Guys...

I changed what my Exchange system announces to the world to mail.jeffersonregional.com

I'm still trying to get ahold of the NDR that they are receiving.

Any comments on the RDNS situation?

Jason - I set RDNS on all installations that I do now. More and more ISPs are using it as a line of defense for spam and viruses that it makes sense not to. I don't see any drawbacks - it is just polite and good practise.

Scampgb - With a problem like this we both thought along the same lines. With the valid domain name a dnsreport was the obvious thing to do first, followed by the request for the NDR - we just worded it differently - but it should give Jason some idea that we are on the same track.

Simon.

> Any comments on the RDNS situation?

Not quite sure what you mean here.  You already have a Reverse DNS entry, although I think it would be worth changing to match your MX - just for neatness :)

Or are you talking about doing something with Reverse DNS Delegation (http://www.ripe.net/reverse/rdns-project/) ?

I personally don't see the need unless you're going to be changing Internet-facing IPs & hostnames on a regular basis.  I generally use aliases anyway - mail.mydomain.com -> 1.2.3.4
This means that I can change what server happens to be 1.2.3.4 whenever I like :-)

I could well be missing something here....

As for the RDNS stuff, I've read a few articles stating that this might be causing my problems?  I don't think it is?  I just wanted a few suggestions.  It appears that the mail is working correctly after I made the change.  I'm going to try to get ahold of the admins at the domains that I'm having trouble with.  If they don't have a RDNS entry, could this be a possible issue.

I know this is alot of questions.  I'll award you guys points once my little dilemma is resolved.

Thanks

OK Guys..  I verified that I do not have RDNS enabled on my Incomming Emails.

I continue to receive more and more clients that say that they can't send us email?  

However, I am still getting mail from a ton of other sites?  

Am I missing something?

Really need the text of the NDR that the other is getting. Lack of RDNS shouldn't cause you not to receive email.

Simon.

The error from the user that can't send me mail reads....

Could not deliver the message in the time limit specified.  Please retry or contact your administrator.

<FIRST.LAST@DOMAIN.COM #4.4.7>

jason15025,
Is that the complete NDR message, or just the bit they wanted to send you?
It's not clear which server is returning that - or exactly why.

It's a little odd about the time-limit bit.

Your message

  To:      jason.ohern@jeffersonregional.com
  Subject: test
  Sent:    Tue, 21 Sep 2004 13:14:33 -0400

did not reach the following recipient(s):

jason.ohern@jeffersonregional.com on Thu, 23 Sep 2004 13:26:16 -0400
    Could not deliver the message in the time limit specified.  Please
retry or contact your administrator.
    <exchange.edataserv.com #4.4.7>

It appears that they don't have PTR records?  Is this their problem?

Thanks Guys...

I've split the points!!  

I think that its not my problem...  I finally feel better..

Hi jason15025,

Thanks for the "A".  Glad I could help, and that you're not worrying anymore! :-)

Maybe not over yet!!

Here is the SMTP LOG INFO when this domain tries to connect?

12:18:18 64.140.86.79 MAIL - 0
12:18:18 64.140.86.79 - - 0
12:18:18 64.140.86.79 RCPT - 0
12:18:18 64.140.86.79 - - 0
12:18:18 64.140.86.79 BDAT - 0
12:18:18 64.140.86.79 - - 0
12:18:18 64.140.86.79 QUIT - 0
12:18:18 64.140.86.79 - - 0

Whats up with this??  I'm really lost.  It appears now he can connect, but no traffic?

PLEASE I'M going nuts

jason15025,
Is that the full log?

Sorry, I'm a bit stumped here.  Sembee! :)

That is probably the default logging level.
Was that a log of you trying to send email to someone, or someone trying to send email to you?

Simon.

It's just the section of my SMTP log where he is trying to connect.  All the other domains log normal.
Here is a bigger section of the log.  As you can see the other domains are fine.  Just this certain one.  

12:17:38 64.140.86.79 - - 0
12:17:38 64.140.86.79 EHLO - 0
12:17:38 64.140.86.79 - - 0
12:17:39 64.140.86.79 MAIL - 0
12:17:39 64.140.86.79 - - 0
12:17:39 64.140.86.79 QUIT - 0
12:17:39 64.140.86.79 - - 0
12:17:43 206.71.58.23 HELO - 250
12:17:43 206.71.58.23 MAIL - 250
12:17:43 206.71.58.23 RCPT - 250
12:17:43 206.71.58.23 DATA - 250
12:17:43 206.71.58.23 MAIL - 250
12:17:43 206.71.58.23 RCPT - 250
12:17:43 206.71.58.23 DATA - 250
12:17:48 206.71.58.23 QUIT - 240
12:18:17 64.140.86.79 - - 0
12:18:17 64.140.86.79 EHLO - 0
12:18:17 64.140.86.79 - - 0
12:18:17 216.52.118.222 EHLO - 250
12:18:17 216.52.118.222 MAIL - 250
12:18:17 216.52.118.222 RCPT - 250
12:18:17 216.52.118.222 DATA - 250
12:18:17 216.52.118.222 QUIT - 240
12:18:18 64.140.86.79 MAIL - 0
12:18:18 64.140.86.79 - - 0
12:18:18 64.140.86.79 RCPT - 0
12:18:18 64.140.86.79 - - 0
12:18:18 64.140.86.79 BDAT - 0
12:18:18 64.140.86.79 - - 0
12:18:18 64.140.86.79 QUIT - 0
12:18:18 64.140.86.79 - - 0

Just thought You might want to know!!

Found the problem!

Our Help Desk guy filtering some domains by their domain name, we found out that Exchange 2000 WILL FORCE REVERSE DNS LOOKUP ON ALL (!!!) CONNECTION ATTEMPS!!! Exchange has to do that in order to be able to filter the domains I entered as Spammers. Domains that don’t have a reverse DNS set up –will be rejected as well –as Exchange can’t verify that they are not on my black list. –All that, while we left the check box “Force reverse DNS lookup” unchecked.  

Interesting because in basic reading about this no where does it say that blocking by domain forces Exchange to start doing reverse DNS on all connections.

*grin*  That would make a lot of sense :-)

There's an increasing number of problems with people not having PTR records set correctly - but bit-by-bit people are sorting it.