Some of my Yahoo subscribers are reporting that emails from my mailing list are being flagged as spam. As far as I can tell, I'm not using spammy words, and the emails are plain text not HTML. I have SPF set up.
One of the Yahoo subscribers kindly forwarded me the full headers and I can see these which appear relevant:
X-YahooFilteredBulk: 150.101.137.129 Received-SPF: pass (domain of pearwood.info designates 150.101.137.129 as permitted sender) X-Originating-IP: [150.101.137.129] Authentication-Results: mta1310.mail.bf1.yahoo.com from=pearwood.info; domainkeys=neutral (no sig); from=pearwood.info; dkim=neutral (no sig) X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AqD1AA1PlVR20UxqPGdsb2JhbABBGoNYWIMEs1KFGUqBUIYAhFwBgQKCMQMgdBc BAQEBAQYBAQEBODuEDgYZAQgREgMFAgYYCgQDAQIGAiQCBRYHCAIBBgMCAQIBDx AICgQeBQYCAgEUAQIBAgKHdwMQCTy6DYFwhGOJUQ2Fa4EhgWqGfwGCOYJMCgQDA QKEfgWDfTAGhB8rgjCDBYJSSYF/gUGCDXQwgjOCBgwhgzaCH4IZgmyCfoFzKjEB AQkBdwkXgSABAQE X-IronPort-SPAM: SPAM
Googling suggests that nobody except Cisco can decipher the X-IronPort-Anti-Spam header, and they refuse to tell even their customers what it means, let alone people like me.
Can anyone suggest something I can do to convince Yahoo I'm not sending spam?
Thanks,
-- Steve
On 12/22/2014 03:18 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
Can anyone suggest something I can do to convince Yahoo I'm not sending spam?
See the FAQ at <http://wiki.list.org/x/4oA9>.
Other than that, if Yahoo were a real ISP and not a freemail ESP that gets nothing from it's users other than their eyeballs, the users themselves might have some clout to achieve delivery of desired mail to their inboxes. As has been said, "friends don't let friends use Yahoo".
Note that I have a yahoo.com (as well as an aol.com and a gmail.com) address just to see some of the problems for myself. My outgoing list mail all has valid SPF and a valid DKIM signature from the list domain, yet occasionally, for no reason I can determine, a list post will end up in my Yahoo spam folder. In my case, this is the exception, and at least the post is delivered as spam and not rejected or silently discarded, YMMV.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
On 12/22/2014 03:18 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
Looking more closely, I see issues here. First, none of the mail I receive at yahoo.com has any X-Ironport-* headers. This is not Yahoo using an IronPort appliance. It may be your outgoing MTA or some other MTA in the delivery chain. Where are these headers in the context of the Received: headers. That will tell you which MTA added them.
It appears your domain is pearwood.info and the IP address of the sending server is 150.101.137.129.
There may be configuration issues around this.
A server sending mail should have a rDNS PTR record pointing to a domain and that domain should have an A record with the IP address of the server. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward-confirmed_reverse_DNS>. The absence of this is a big red flag for many ISPs
pearwood.info has no A record. the rDNS PTR for IP 150.101.137.129 is ipmail06.adl2.internode.on.net which does have an A record with IP 150.101.137.129 so maybe this is OK, but it is something to think about.
Note that it is not necessary that the server's canonical name be the domain of the list. It helps if SPF permits the server for the domain and it does in your case, but if I had to guess, I'd guess the
X-YahooFilteredBulk: 150.101.137.129
is the relevant header and it means Yahoo doesn't like your IP for some reason.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
On Mon, Dec 22, 2014 at 07:36:54PM -0800, Mark Sapiro wrote:
The Received headers look like this:
Received: from 127.0.0.1 (EHLO ipmail06.adl2.internode.on.net) (150.101.137.129) by mta1310.mail.bf1.yahoo.com with SMTP; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 10:32:13 +0000 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: [gibberish removed] X-IronPort-SPAM: SPAM Received: from ppp118-209-76-106.lns20.mel4.internode.on.net (HELO pearwood.info) ([118.209.76.106]) by ipmail06.adl2.internode.on.net with ESMTP; 20 Dec 2014 21:01:15 +1030 Received: from ando.pearwood.info (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by pearwood.info (Postfix) with ESMTP id B67FE120737; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 21:11:52 +1100 (EST)
Internode is my ISP, and I shall talk to them, but I don't see any sign that they are adding X-IronPort-* headers to my outgoing mail. I subscribe my work email address, and they don't get any IronPort headers.
It appears your domain is pearwood.info and the IP address of the sending server is 150.101.137.129.
Yes, my domain is pearwood.info. 150.101.137.129 appears to be (one of?) my ISP's mail server(s). I have been advised that because I have a dynamic IP address, I should have my outgoing mail go via my ISP's mail server. So I have this in my postfix config:
myhostname = pearwood.info mydomain = pearwood.info relayhost = mail.internode.on.net
Do you think I should set up an A record for pearwood.info?
I shall certainly talk to my ISP. Is it worth trying to talk to Yahoo? Are they likely to care? I've been told by some Yahoo users that Yahoo's unofficial policy seems to be that *all* bulk email not originating from Yahoo itself is treated as ipso facto spam.
Thanks very much for your help, and may you have a great Christmas and New Year.
-- Steven
On 12/25/2014 05:04 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
So, assuming the report from the Yahoo user has the headers in the actual order that they appear in the message, the X-IronPort-* headers were added by ipmail06.adl2.internode.on.net just after receiving the message from what appears to be your pearwood.info outgoing MTA and prior to delivering the message to mta1310.mail.bf1.yahoo.com.
So that's an inconsistency, but only internode can explain why.
In any case, I'm sure that Yahoo didn't add those headers, and I doubt that they took them into account in their decision to deliver the mail to the user's spam folder. Then again. only Yahoo knows for sure and they won't tell.
Do you think I should set up an A record for pearwood.info?
I don't think it would help. Plus, since it is a dynamic IP, you would have to do this through some dynamic DNS service.
I don't know. Based on my experiences with similar, non-yahoo ESPs and ISPs, it depends on your tenacity and your tolerance for frustration.
My experience is if you hammer long, hard and intelligently enough, you will never get an intelligent response that actually addresses the real issue, but the problem will 'magically' resolve.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Steven D'Aprano writes:
I think it might be helpful to set up DKIM as well. The standard prohibits differentiating between unsigned mail and mail with a failed signature, but you are allowed to decrease spamminess scores for a successful signature verification, and also for From alignment (aka DMARC pass). (Yes, I believe that Yahoo conforms to standards in this respect, though I can't be sure.)
The FAQ as mentioned by Mark already (fastest consult in the West!): http://wiki.list.org/x/4oA9
A useful tidbit from that FAQ: Yahoo's feedback loop is at http://feedbackloop.yahoo.net/index.php
X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true
I hate IronPort. My employer uses it and enables [SPAM] subject tags, so it's *really* obvious that about 40% (!!) of spam is *not* caught, and on the other hand about 15% of ham is tagged SPAM or SUSPECT SPAM. Why bother?
Regards,
On 12/22/2014 03:18 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
Can anyone suggest something I can do to convince Yahoo I'm not sending spam?
See the FAQ at <http://wiki.list.org/x/4oA9>.
Other than that, if Yahoo were a real ISP and not a freemail ESP that gets nothing from it's users other than their eyeballs, the users themselves might have some clout to achieve delivery of desired mail to their inboxes. As has been said, "friends don't let friends use Yahoo".
Note that I have a yahoo.com (as well as an aol.com and a gmail.com) address just to see some of the problems for myself. My outgoing list mail all has valid SPF and a valid DKIM signature from the list domain, yet occasionally, for no reason I can determine, a list post will end up in my Yahoo spam folder. In my case, this is the exception, and at least the post is delivered as spam and not rejected or silently discarded, YMMV.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
On 12/22/2014 03:18 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
Looking more closely, I see issues here. First, none of the mail I receive at yahoo.com has any X-Ironport-* headers. This is not Yahoo using an IronPort appliance. It may be your outgoing MTA or some other MTA in the delivery chain. Where are these headers in the context of the Received: headers. That will tell you which MTA added them.
It appears your domain is pearwood.info and the IP address of the sending server is 150.101.137.129.
There may be configuration issues around this.
A server sending mail should have a rDNS PTR record pointing to a domain and that domain should have an A record with the IP address of the server. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward-confirmed_reverse_DNS>. The absence of this is a big red flag for many ISPs
pearwood.info has no A record. the rDNS PTR for IP 150.101.137.129 is ipmail06.adl2.internode.on.net which does have an A record with IP 150.101.137.129 so maybe this is OK, but it is something to think about.
Note that it is not necessary that the server's canonical name be the domain of the list. It helps if SPF permits the server for the domain and it does in your case, but if I had to guess, I'd guess the
X-YahooFilteredBulk: 150.101.137.129
is the relevant header and it means Yahoo doesn't like your IP for some reason.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
On Mon, Dec 22, 2014 at 07:36:54PM -0800, Mark Sapiro wrote:
The Received headers look like this:
Received: from 127.0.0.1 (EHLO ipmail06.adl2.internode.on.net) (150.101.137.129) by mta1310.mail.bf1.yahoo.com with SMTP; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 10:32:13 +0000 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: [gibberish removed] X-IronPort-SPAM: SPAM Received: from ppp118-209-76-106.lns20.mel4.internode.on.net (HELO pearwood.info) ([118.209.76.106]) by ipmail06.adl2.internode.on.net with ESMTP; 20 Dec 2014 21:01:15 +1030 Received: from ando.pearwood.info (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by pearwood.info (Postfix) with ESMTP id B67FE120737; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 21:11:52 +1100 (EST)
Internode is my ISP, and I shall talk to them, but I don't see any sign that they are adding X-IronPort-* headers to my outgoing mail. I subscribe my work email address, and they don't get any IronPort headers.
It appears your domain is pearwood.info and the IP address of the sending server is 150.101.137.129.
Yes, my domain is pearwood.info. 150.101.137.129 appears to be (one of?) my ISP's mail server(s). I have been advised that because I have a dynamic IP address, I should have my outgoing mail go via my ISP's mail server. So I have this in my postfix config:
myhostname = pearwood.info mydomain = pearwood.info relayhost = mail.internode.on.net
Do you think I should set up an A record for pearwood.info?
I shall certainly talk to my ISP. Is it worth trying to talk to Yahoo? Are they likely to care? I've been told by some Yahoo users that Yahoo's unofficial policy seems to be that *all* bulk email not originating from Yahoo itself is treated as ipso facto spam.
Thanks very much for your help, and may you have a great Christmas and New Year.
-- Steven
On 12/25/2014 05:04 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
So, assuming the report from the Yahoo user has the headers in the actual order that they appear in the message, the X-IronPort-* headers were added by ipmail06.adl2.internode.on.net just after receiving the message from what appears to be your pearwood.info outgoing MTA and prior to delivering the message to mta1310.mail.bf1.yahoo.com.
So that's an inconsistency, but only internode can explain why.
In any case, I'm sure that Yahoo didn't add those headers, and I doubt that they took them into account in their decision to deliver the mail to the user's spam folder. Then again. only Yahoo knows for sure and they won't tell.
Do you think I should set up an A record for pearwood.info?
I don't think it would help. Plus, since it is a dynamic IP, you would have to do this through some dynamic DNS service.
I don't know. Based on my experiences with similar, non-yahoo ESPs and ISPs, it depends on your tenacity and your tolerance for frustration.
My experience is if you hammer long, hard and intelligently enough, you will never get an intelligent response that actually addresses the real issue, but the problem will 'magically' resolve.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Steven D'Aprano writes:
I think it might be helpful to set up DKIM as well. The standard prohibits differentiating between unsigned mail and mail with a failed signature, but you are allowed to decrease spamminess scores for a successful signature verification, and also for From alignment (aka DMARC pass). (Yes, I believe that Yahoo conforms to standards in this respect, though I can't be sure.)
The FAQ as mentioned by Mark already (fastest consult in the West!): http://wiki.list.org/x/4oA9
A useful tidbit from that FAQ: Yahoo's feedback loop is at http://feedbackloop.yahoo.net/index.php
X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true
I hate IronPort. My employer uses it and enables [SPAM] subject tags, so it's *really* obvious that about 40% (!!) of spam is *not* caught, and on the other hand about 15% of ham is tagged SPAM or SUSPECT SPAM. Why bother?
Regards,
participants (3)
-
Mark Sapiro -
Stephen J. Turnbull -
Steven D'Aprano