Jim, et. al.:
Just some comments on my own set of "best practices" as an ESP (E-mail
Service Provider), and my own experiences with the likes of MXLogic:
First, I keep a set of email addresses on free mail services
(it4s...@yahoo.com, for example). I primarily use them to test in/out
mail flow when clients complain, but in this kind of case, I have used
them to contact otherwise blocked recipients to enlist their assistance
in removing the block. (The difference with the likes of MXLogic is that
you need to use this "alternate" address as a way to contact the person
who is missing the email (the recipient)... You will ask THAT person
(the one NOT receiving messages from your server) for their help in
getting messages to them... but they can't actually help you themselves!
To help, that person then needs to contact /*their */IT department so
that they (now the_*4th *_person) can contact MXLogic to help you get
de-listed.)
Believe me, I know the pain that this is -- and there are other vendors
who are just as much a pain in the a$$! But it is especially difficult
because you're dependent upon so many others to do what you need them to
do just to get someone at MXLogic to look at you!
My own tale:
I actually _subscribed _to one vendor's anti-spam product for one of
my domains for a 30-day trial.... SOLELY so their tech support team
would even TALK to me about getting a new mail server de-listed!
I'd spent more than TWO WEEKS trying to get off of their filters
(another case of an anti-SPAM company purchased by an AV company and
subsequently trashed by same). Once I subscribed (for the trial,
mind you -- I never paid them a dime!) I was off their damnable list
-- same day!
The REASON I was on the list to begin with was that some decade or
so ago, the IP address I was assigned was in a dynamic range... when
my ISP purchased that IP range, they didn't know about its past, and
I was the first mailserver to be implemented (I was, after all,
address 6 in the range). When I contacted my ISP about this, and
THEY tried to contact the vendor -- they too were rebuffed.
Only when *I* became a "paying client" were they willing to give
ANYONE the time of day about why they were blocking the IP address
range... as a paying client, I got reasons and resolution in a
matter of hours!
I very nearly lost the account over the length of time it took to
get that one last block removed -- and I may yet still lose it
because the client lost some significant confidence in me over it...
but that's another story (the moral of which is, I'll never again
accept mail hosting without DNS hosting as part of the package!).
Another suggestion is to use multiple types of monitoring... if you're
hosting hundreds (or even thousands) of users, you need to watch out for
bad actors. I previously posted a short script that makes use of free
tools to scan the QMT log files and count the number of failed message
attempts per day. When it exceeds an artificial threshold, I get
notified and I can presumably do something about it -- like determine if
one user is the majority of those failures, and if so, shut them down
BEFORE they get us blacklisted! Another option is to subscribe to tools
like those available at mxtoolbox.com. They're not free, but the scan
and test things for you and only bother you if there are changes.
I hope this is useful... to SOMEONE!
Dan
IT4SOHO
On 11/11/2013 1:34 PM, Jim Shupert wrote:
I do appreciate your thoughts and history.
I have since my 1st post done some google searching -while results are
thin...
the bottomline is :
MXLogic is a lump of crap ... but then it is from MacAfee [ how DO
they stay in business?)
On 11/8/2013 12:35 PM, Dan McAllister wrote:
MXLogic is McAfee's anti-spam product (like Symantec, they just
purchased another company to enable this service for their company).
MXLogic has either labeled that particular message as SPAM, or has
blacklisted your server IP address.
MXLogic is a ROYAL PAIN because they intentionally don't reveal what
makes them see your message as SPAM, and they don't have any easy way
of being de-listed either.
I have shared my experiences with several clients and told recipients
that they will have to be the ones to get us de-listed by MXLogic, as
they won't listen to us.
I even told one vendor that if he wanted my business, he'd either
have to drop MXLogic or intervene on my behalf, but I wasn't going to
do business with him if I couldn't send him emails.... he wound up
dropping MXLogic.
Just my thoughts and "history" on the matter.
Dan McAllister
IT4SOHO
QMT DNS/Mirror Admin
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