Amazingly its not a route problem. Its actually confirmed an issue with the mail server. Hense me asking for a mail services admin. The issue is confirmed from 3 locations with 3 different ISP's and I do actually know whats going on. I can connect to the server, but it will not allow me to send messages, even when authenticated. Returns a 554. It has been doing this with legitimate mail. They do not have the ability to send outbound as they get a 554 from their home office. The secondary smtp server links me to spamhaus saying that it will not allow relay based on an existing PBL entry. The PBL entry is because it's a residential DHCP connection, and the PBL entry was put in place by the isp. Please see http://www.spamhaus.org/pbl/query/PBL191963 if you have questions. So. Again. Looking for a GoDaddy Mail services Admin. -----Original Message----- From: Frank Bulk [mailto:frnkblk@iname.com] Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 9:07 PM To: Blake Pfankuch; nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: Go daddy mail services admin This would be when a tcp traceroute would be very helpful in diagnosing the problem. Frank -----Original Message----- From: Blake Pfankuch [mailto:bpfankuch@cpgreeley.com] Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 12:59 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Go daddy mail services admin Could I get a godaddy mail admin to contact me off list? Ive been working with a client who has a hosted website and mail services and lost the ability to communicate with their SMTP server about 6 weeks ago. Been through about 4 hours on the phone with Godaddy Support and Comcast. Thanks Blake Pfankuch Connecting Point of Greeley Network Engineer 970-356-7224 [cid:image001.jpg@01C9222A.D05DF880][cid:image002.gif@01C9222A.D05DF880]

Apologies about my response if it sounded a bit terse. I got about 30 private replies of "can you ping it? Can you telnet the smtp port?" -----Original Message----- From: Frank Bulk [mailto:frnkblk@iname.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 10:02 AM To: Blake Pfankuch; nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: Go daddy mail services admin Blake: Sorry -- when you wrote "communicate" it wasn't clear if you had L3 connectivity to that server or not. All the best! Frank -----Original Message----- From: Blake Pfankuch [mailto:bpfankuch@cpgreeley.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 8:22 AM To: Frank Bulk; nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: Go daddy mail services admin Amazingly its not a route problem. Its actually confirmed an issue with the mail server. Hense me asking for a mail services admin. The issue is confirmed from 3 locations with 3 different ISP's and I do actually know whats going on. I can connect to the server, but it will not allow me to send messages, even when authenticated. Returns a 554. It has been doing this with legitimate mail. They do not have the ability to send outbound as they get a 554 from their home office. The secondary smtp server links me to spamhaus saying that it will not allow relay based on an existing PBL entry. The PBL entry is because it's a residential DHCP connection, and the PBL entry was put in place by the isp. Please see http://www.spamhaus.org/pbl/query/PBL191963 if you have questions. So. Again. Looking for a GoDaddy Mail services Admin. -----Original Message----- From: Frank Bulk [mailto:frnkblk@iname.com] Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 9:07 PM To: Blake Pfankuch; nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: Go daddy mail services admin This would be when a tcp traceroute would be very helpful in diagnosing the problem. Frank -----Original Message----- From: Blake Pfankuch [mailto:bpfankuch@cpgreeley.com] Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 12:59 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Go daddy mail services admin Could I get a godaddy mail admin to contact me off list? Ive been working with a client who has a hosted website and mail services and lost the ability to communicate with their SMTP server about 6 weeks ago. Been through about 4 hours on the phone with Godaddy Support and Comcast. Thanks Blake Pfankuch Connecting Point of Greeley Network Engineer 970-356-7224 [cid:image001.jpg@01C9222A.D05DF880][cid:image002.gif@01C9222A.D05DF880]

On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 07:21:52AM -0600, Blake Pfankuch wrote:

Amazingly its not a route problem. Its actually confirmed an issue with the mail server. Hense me asking for a mail services admin. The issue is confirmed from 3 locations with 3 different ISP's and I do actually know whats going on. I can connect to the server, but it will not allow me to send messages, even when authenticated. Returns a 554. It has been doing this with legitimate mail. They do not have the ability to send outbound as they get a 554 from their home office. The secondary smtp server links me to spamhaus saying that it will not allow relay based on an existing PBL entry. The PBL entry is because it's a residential DHCP connection, and the PBL entry was put in place by the isp. Please see http://www.spamhaus.org/pbl/query/PBL191963 if you have questions.

So. Again. Looking for a GoDaddy Mail services Admin.

Hi Blake - With Godaddy The 554 code is a tipoff. Does the error also contain the text: SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data: host smtp.where.secureserver.net [xx.xx.xx.xx]: 554 The message was rejected because it contains prohibited virus or spam content GoDaddy has an unusual policy of rejecting any email that mentions anything that resolves to an IP address on the PBL list Note this means any text string with the email body itself, not the originating IP of the email. Any text, a URL or a even a dotted quad that resolves to the PBL list will cause the email to blocked. By way of example, this policy blocks emails from amazon ec2 merchants even if the email only mentions a web site hosted at ec2, and the email itself is from a static web server with proper MX records. They have been contacted multiple times over the years about this issue and refuse to change their policy. The PBL list explicitly describes how to use their list and this way of using it is incorrect. The PBL list is supposed to be used to check the IP address of the system actually delivering the email to your server, not the contents of the email. Based on their long term refusal to adjust their policy to conform to PBL intended usage of the list I suspect this issue cannot be corrected. The only answer I have found is to inform the affected people they have to move from GoDaddy to a company that does a better job to correct the problem. If this is NOT the issue creating your problem, then you may be able to get GoDaddy to do something to help. Good luck. Jeff Kinz.

Peter Beckman wrote:

On Wed, 1 Oct 2008, Jeff Kinz wrote:

...

GoDaddy has an unusual policy of rejecting any email that mentions anything that resolves to an IP address on the PBL list

Why doesn't someone at Spamhaus block godaddy requests for the PBL, until they get their act together? If they are using the PBL inappropriately, or outside the terms and conditions set forth by Spamhaus fur use of the PBL, then Spamhaus has full control here.

I'm sure goDaddy is paying Spamhaus for access to the PBL, so it might be problematic, but I think Spamhaus should have a policy that if someone is misusing the PBL, the PBL will be blocked until the PBL is being properly implemented.

Get it together, Spamhaus, help us out.

If I use the PBL (or any other list) to stupidly block on my own customers, why should spamhaus care? I'm sure they have better things to do that babysit people who may or not be using it inappropriately (for whoever decides to define "inappropriate"). ~Seth

Thank you all for your help. The issue is now resolved, in an ass backwards sort of way. We purchased a VPS and set up a smtp proxy on an obscure port and mail is now being processed..... -----Original Message----- From: Matthew Huff [mailto:mhuff@ox.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 8:34 AM To: 'Jeff Kinz'; Blake Pfankuch Cc: 'nanog@nanog.org' Subject: RE: Go daddy mail services admin We encountered some mail systems where they checked each hop in the received list and if each and every one could not be reverse resolved, the mail would bounce. And even if they resolved, they were checked against the PBL. We had to add some internal mail servers to our external dns because of this. I would have preferred just to let the mail bounce, but since they were customers, we had to bend. Designing a mail system that paranoid is certainly up to individual sites, but they shouldn't be surprised when legitimate mail bounces. Even if you are doing this, it should be to setup a score and mark the header, rather than bouncing. ---- Matthew Huff | One Manhattanville Rd OTA Management LLC | Purchase, NY 10577 www.ox.com | Phone: 914-460-4039 aim: matthewbhuff | Fax: 914-460-4139 -----Original Message----- From: Jeff Kinz [mailto:jkinz@kinz.org] Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 10:17 AM To: Blake Pfankuch Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Go daddy mail services admin On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 07:21:52AM -0600, Blake Pfankuch wrote:

Amazingly its not a route problem. Its actually confirmed an issue with the mail server. Hense me asking for a mail services admin. The issue is confirmed from 3 locations with 3 different ISP's and I do actually know whats going on. I can connect to the server, but it will not allow me to send messages, even when authenticated. Returns a 554. It has been doing this with legitimate mail. They do not have the ability to send outbound as they get a 554 from their home office. The secondary smtp server links me to spamhaus saying that it will not allow relay based on an existing PBL entry. The PBL entry is because it's a residential DHCP connection, and the PBL entry was put in place by the isp. Please see http://www.spamhaus.org/pbl/query/PBL191963 if you have questions.

So. Again. Looking for a GoDaddy Mail services Admin.

Hi Blake - With Godaddy The 554 code is a tipoff. Does the error also contain the text: SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data: host smtp.where.secureserver.net [xx.xx.xx.xx]: 554 The message was rejected because it contains prohibited virus or spam content GoDaddy has an unusual policy of rejecting any email that mentions anything that resolves to an IP address on the PBL list Note this means any text string with the email body itself, not the originating IP of the email. Any text, a URL or a even a dotted quad that resolves to the PBL list will cause the email to blocked. By way of example, this policy blocks emails from amazon ec2 merchants even if the email only mentions a web site hosted at ec2, and the email itself is from a static web server with proper MX records. They have been contacted multiple times over the years about this issue and refuse to change their policy. The PBL list explicitly describes how to use their list and this way of using it is incorrect. The PBL list is supposed to be used to check the IP address of the system actually delivering the email to your server, not the contents of the email. Based on their long term refusal to adjust their policy to conform to PBL intended usage of the list I suspect this issue cannot be corrected. The only answer I have found is to inform the affected people they have to move from GoDaddy to a company that does a better job to correct the problem. If this is NOT the issue creating your problem, then you may be able to get GoDaddy to do something to help. Good luck. Jeff Kinz.

Yeah they usually simply do /24 blocks. From what I remember in the blacklist 550 response it says a removal link? Something like http://unblock.secureserver.net/?ip=x.x.x.x right? -r -----Original Message----- From: Justin Shore [mailto:justin@justinshore.com] Sent: Friday, October 03, 2008 2:13 PM To: Jeff Kinz; NANOG Subject: Re: Go daddy mail services admin Jeff Kinz wrote:

Based on their long term refusal to adjust their policy to conform to PBL intended usage of the list I suspect this issue cannot be corrected. The only answer I have found is to inform the affected people they have to move from GoDaddy to a company that does a better job to correct the problem.

GoDaddy is about as worthless of a mail provider and it gets. I can't count the number of times I've had customers get themselves blacklisted by GoDaddy and not be able to get unlisted. Finding a contact number for them used to be damn near impossible. Finding a competent mail admin on the other end actually was impossible. My own company got blacklisted by GoDaddy a little over a year ago. A user with an infected laptop relayed infected email out through the corporate firewall's NAT pool (no longer blindly permitted). GoDaddy's response? The entire /24 used by our corporate firewall was blacklisted intermittently for about 6 months. Our recommendation to our clients and our SP customers is to not use GoDaddy's mail services. Pick a mail provider that's known for being responsive. Justin

On 10/3/2008 at 1:13 PM Justin Shore wrote: |Jeff Kinz wrote: |> Based on their long term refusal to adjust their policy to |> conform to PBL intended usage of the list I suspect this |> issue cannot be corrected. The only answer I have found is |> to inform the affected people they have to move from GoDaddy |> to a company that does a better job to correct the problem. | |GoDaddy is about as worthless of a mail provider and it gets. I can't |count the number of times I've had customers get themselves blacklisted |by GoDaddy and not be able to get unlisted. Finding a contact number |for them used to be damn near impossible. Finding a competent mail |admin on the other end actually was impossible. My own company got |blacklisted by GoDaddy a little over a year ago. A user with an |infected laptop relayed infected email out through the corporate |firewall's NAT pool (no longer blindly permitted). GoDaddy's response? | The entire /24 used by our corporate firewall was blacklisted |intermittently for about 6 months. | |Our recommendation to our clients and our SP customers is to not use |GoDaddy's mail services. Pick a mail provider that's known for being |responsive. ============= I would add that Yahoo email should also be on that list of email providers to tell one's customers to avoid, for all the reasons mentioned above. Yahoo's email is especially bad around the area I live because the local DSL provider uses a re-branded Yahoo email service. It has become easier for me to walk to my neighbor's house and hand-deliver a letter, than to try sending an email to that neighbor's Yahoo email inbox.