[server-admins] Hotmail blocking crosswire.org (was: Fwd: Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender)

[Jonathan Marsden]

On 01/19/2011 08:35 AM, DM Smith wrote:

> Troy et al,

> Looks like we have some blocking at the new internet provider.

I disagree.  Apparently we have blocking by HOTMAIL *of* the new IP
address.  Which is not the same thing at all.

I see no evidence at all that the new provider is blocking anything,
only that hotmail is.  Am I misreading this?  The host called
mx3.hotmail.com is the one saying "part of their network is on our block
list"!  So (as I read that) the ones doing the blocking (the ones with a
block list!) are Hotmail (i.e. Microsoft).

> preachgospel at hotmail.com SMTP error from remote mail server after
> MAIL FROM:<dmsmith at crosswire.org> SIZE=3349:
> host mx3.hotmail.com [65.55.37.104]: 550 SC-001 Unfortunately,
> messages from 64.71.190.106 weren't sent. Please contact your
> Internet service provider since part of their network is on our block
> list. You can also refer your provider to
> http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx#errors.

It's entirely possible this is just because we don't yet have reverse
DNS working, and are on a new IP, or because a previous colo user of
64.71.190.106 (or something close enough to considered in the same
subnet by hotmail) was a bad guy and hotmail noticed.

The linked-to web page suggest "new IP" as one cause of issues with
Hotmail, which seems a poor policy to me, but Hotmail is big and can
basically afford to set policy however they want, and everyone else has
to do what they say if they want their email servers to talk to Hotmail!

Give us some time to get reverse DNS happy, and if we're still seeing
this kind of rejection by hotmail in a week or two, we'll (sigh!) need
to work with hotmail to try and resolve things and play with their
reputation system(s) until they are willing to accept mail from us.

I'll note in passing that "messages from 64.71.190.106 weren't sent" is
extremely misleading in this context.  We *tried* to send them, but
hotmail refused them.  And they make it sound like that is Crosswire's
fault.

Jonathan