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Multiple SMTP Server help.
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Multiple SMTP Server help.

Hi, I need help hoping someone was able to fix this or has experienced this.

So I have 2 shared hosting accounts that allow sending emails.
My domain name is hosted in Cloudflare. Here is the scenario.

The www.domain.com is pointed to a VPS server which works fine.
Instead of installing an SMTP server on that VPS, I want to use the shared hosting accounts SMTP because those shared hosting is just idling.

So I set up MX on Cloudflare and point it to Shared Hosting A which works fine I am able to send and receive email from SH-A.

I also set an MX on Cloudflare for Shared Hosting B (SH-B). Both SH-A and SH-B can receive the same email when I tested it only SH-B has some delay due to MX (priority/weight).

The problem:

When I use SH-B to send emails to my Gmail account automatically Gmail blocks it saying "unsolicited email blah blah". I check the SH-B IP address if it is blacklisted but it is not. Both SH-A and SH-B are not blacklisted.

What do you think is the problem?
SH-A ---> can send/receive email (working good)
SH-B ---> can receive only

How can I make it so that SH-B can also send an email?

This is my SPF Record:

mail | v=spf1 a -all

Do note that I only send an email to my Gmail for server monitor. I want to learn how to make this possible.

Both SH-A and SH-B have a CRON job checking the VPS server uptime.

Comments

  • Hard reject SPF is not good idea. Check ip in multirbl. And if you can buy email services, because email is hard.

  • @LTniger what could be a good SPF value?
    I checked the IP again using multirbl and yeah it was blacklisted..

    It says **DNSRBL - DNS Real-time Blackhole List **

  • sanvitsanvit Member
    edited September 2020

    @LTniger said:
    Hard reject SPF is not good idea. Check ip in multirbl. And if you can buy email services, because email is hard.

    Can you elaborate? I thought hard reject SPF is better than softfail, as long as you include all your sending IPs on there.

    @jeorlie you could use

    v=spf1 include:spf-of-email-sending-service ip:1.2.3.4 ip:4.5.6.0/24 -all

    Something similar to this. However, I HIGHLY recommend using a dedicated email service rather than shared hosing, like SES, PostMark, MXroute, Mailgun, SocketLabs, etc. (some even have free tiers/please no SendGrid)

    And by the way, iirc if you set multiple MX records, only one can recieve email. The MTA will try the lower priority mx record only if the higher one fails. Not sure which mail service you used for testing, but beware that you might miss some mails if you setup like that.

  • LeviLevi Member
    edited September 2020

    @sanvit said: Can you elaborate?

    Your primary goal for email server is to send and receive emails, not block them. When you do a hard SPF fail you maybe do a favor for other email server admins, definitely not for your-self.

  • @LTniger said:

    @sanvit said: Can you elaborate?

    You primary goal for email server is to send and receive emails, not block them. When you do a hard SPF fail you maybe do a favor for other email server admins, definitely not for your-self.

    Mails you sent will still be received by others. Just mails sent by unauthorized users will be dropped. Email is really easy to spoof if you don't set up SPF and DKIM and DMARC properly.

    Thanked by 1jar
  • I remove one MX record of SH-B and when I tried sending from SH-A everything is okay (send/receive). When I try sending from SH-B it always fails and it cannot receive now.

    I added this SPF entry

    v=spf1 ip4:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx ip4:xxx.xx.xxx.xx -all

    @LTniger I tried changing to ~all and it not working only SH-A can send/receive.

    I got you point @sanvit regarding the prior. I removed one of the MX record and change the SPF but SH-B cannot send/receive mail now.

    I'm still googling for this.

    I was using other bulk mail delivery when they have free but I maybe soon they will stop giving free and it will be a waste of penny subscribing on those when I am only using this for personal not gain at all. I love buying yearly cheap shared hosting so I can experiment with them.

  • @jeorlie said: I added this SPF entry

    Note that you should add only 1 SPF record (you shouldn't have 2 records starting with v=spf1)

    @jeorlie said: SH-B cannot send

    This seems due to IP blacklisting. Try mail-tester.com and see what it tells you.

    @jeorlie said: receive

    This is normal, as the sending server only knows server A as a receiving server

    @jeorlie said: I am only using this for personal

    TBH MXroute is perfect for this. iirc there was a reseller who sells MXroute for $5ish/year. and SES is $0.1/1K emails, so if you only send few emails a month, you won't be charged.

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    You say SH-B can receive only but the only issue you state is with Gmail. What other delivery issues are you facing (I’m thinking of a localdomains issue preventing your delivery to SH-A), or is it just the Gmail issue?

    If it’s just the Gmail issue there’s probably too many neighbors on the server forwarding spam email to Gmail.

  • @jar said: probably too many neighbors on the server forwarding spam email to Gmail

    so much this...

    @jar do you have any experience with SRS on that matter? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Rewriting_Scheme
    should help with SPF, but would it lower the impact on the IP reputation? what about the own domain reputation?

    Thanked by 1jar
  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    @Falzo said:

    @jar said: probably too many neighbors on the server forwarding spam email to Gmail

    so much this...

    @jar do you have any experience with SRS on that matter? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Rewriting_Scheme
    should help with SPF, but would it lower the impact on the IP reputation? what about the own domain reputation?

    It’s overrated. All standards to that end are really. For it to be of value you have to consider the forwarding server to be trustworthy and Google isn’t going to do that any more than anyone else will.

    Thanked by 1Falzo
  • team_traitorteam_traitor Member
    edited September 2020

    Update:

    I am now able to send from SH-A (send and receive) and on SH-B (send only)

    Now I am sure that any email will be sent to SH-A and I can only send on SH-B which is good but the mail being sent from SH-B always end up in the spam folder. For now, I am getting around 7+ score in mail-tester, I need to make it at least 8 or 9 to avoid email being treated as spam.

    thanks for the help guys.
    @jar @Falzo @sanvit @LTniger

    Note: The main problem of SH-B before is that the dkim key is invalid, I forgot to add this on cloudflare. To fix it I have to add 2 TXT records.

  • AbdAbd Member, Patron Provider

    @jeorlie so two dkim records, is it fixed now?

  • @Abdullah7310 yeah it is fixed now. I'm able to send/receive on SH-A and send only for SH-B which is a good sign. I'll try adding my other shared hosting to have a 3rd MTA to see if it works.

    Thanked by 1Abd
  • @jeorlie said:
    @Abdullah7310 yeah it is fixed now. I'm able to send/receive on SH-A and send only for SH-B which is a good sign. I'll try adding my other shared hosting to have a 3rd MTA to see if it works.

    I would still highly recommend you use at least SES or webhosting that provides MailChannels (e.g. BuyShared or MyW), as I believe you emails are usually worth more than $0.0001 ($0.1/K)

    Thanked by 2Abd team_traitor
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