[Mailman-Users] All confirmation emails going to SPAM on gmail

Fri Sep 4 18:06:12 CEST 2015

On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 7:01 PM, Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net> wrote:
> On 09/03/2015 07:21 AM, Nitin Sharma wrote:
>>
>> So I set up mailman ( mailman-2.1.15-21.20 ) and have my
>> SPF/DKIM/DMARC set for my domain.
>
>
> I too have SPF and DKIM sign my outgoing mail, but I don't publish a
> DMARC policy.
>
>
>> All of the confirmation emails sent are classified under Gmail as
>> "Spam". The list postings however are correctly sent to Forum Tab.
>
>
> I just requested subscription of a gmail address to a list and the
> confirmation request arrived in my gmail inbox.
>
>
>> I see that "Precedence:bulk" is set on the confirmation emails,
>> whereas "Precedence:list" is set on the posting. I think that's okay.
>>
>> Confirmation emails are important and I want to increase the
>> likelihood of it not being classified as spam.
>
>
> Agreed.
>
>
>> Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
>
>
> Here are the headers of the message from my gmail inbox. Some lines may
> be wrapped, but otherwise this is an exact copy.
>
> Delivered-To: marksapiro at gmail.com
> Received: by 10.79.28.84 with SMTP id c81csp55822ivc;
>         Thu, 3 Sep 2015 14:04:07 -0700 (PDT)
> X-Received: by 10.107.160.196 with SMTP id j187mr192882ioe.80.1441314247111;
>         Thu, 03 Sep 2015 14:04:07 -0700 (PDT)
> Return-Path: <wed_ride-bounces+marksapiro=gmail.com at grizz.org>
> Received: from sbh16.songbird.com (sbh16.songbird.com. [72.52.113.16])
>         by mx.google.com with ESMTP id w5si175300igl.33.2015.09.03.14.04.06
>         for <marksapiro at gmail.com>;
>         Thu, 03 Sep 2015 14:04:06 -0700 (PDT)
> Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of
> wed_ride-bounces+marksapiro=gmail.com at grizz.org designates 72.52.113.16
> as permitted sender) client-ip=72.52.113.16;
> Authentication-Results: mx.google.com;
>        spf=pass (google.com: domain of
> wed_ride-bounces+marksapiro=gmail.com at grizz.org designates 72.52.113.16
> as permitted sender)
> smtp.mailfrom=wed_ride-bounces+marksapiro=gmail.com at grizz.org;
>        dkim=pass header.i=@grizz.org
> Received: from sbh16.songbird.com (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])
>         by sbh16.songbird.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id EB6C111E0075
>         for <marksapiro at gmail.com>; Thu,  3 Sep 2015 14:03:23 -0700 (PDT)
> DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=grizz.org; s=default;
>         t=1441314203; bh=yEUb4ckS6Fc1HbEAgDUhqOHNgu/RDCrA6+1VBSmCVRA=;
>         h=From:To:Subject:Reply-To:Date:List-Id;
>         b=Y29kTn45HV3hl9P8uVmdDoZFAm8kCCA9CFxj+sX9ip3gJcXktosI8ih86hSM55lxE
>          af74YrR1zzc0RrnLaQLni1iIr+lErigt8zU5TcchUO3Xf+rdZzR/WNzPfFhdC/MtP9
>          KZy/l1rZWlB/RHDFxsM4xW1MIUmrNoUyJ0hl9Ix4=
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> From: wed_ride-confirm+1e5aa844ab20f780c82596c0f41b178ff5d9eb25 at grizz.org
> To: marksapiro at gmail.com
> Subject: Your confirmation is required to join the Wed_ride mailing list
> Reply-To:
> wed_ride-confirm+1e5aa844ab20f780c82596c0f41b178ff5d9eb25 at grizz.org
> Auto-Submitted: auto-generated
> Message-ID: <mailman.0.1441314194.11087.wed_ride at grizz.org>
> Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2015 14:03:14 -0700
> Precedence: bulk
> X-BeenThere: wed_ride at grizz.org
> X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20
> List-Id: GPC Wednesday Ride List <wed_ride.grizz.org>
> X-List-Administrivia: yes
> Errors-To: wed_ride-bounces+marksapiro=gmail.com at grizz.org
>
>
>> I opened a discussion in here too , which contain all the headers -
>> https://productforums.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!msg/gmail/mxkNC3b_KK0/8xEoHtksLRoJ
>
>
> The only significant difference I see in headers is your
>
> Received: from ip-10-73-187-221.ec2.internal (mail.nypny.com.
> [2001:470:1f07:12b5::2])
>         by mx.google.com
>
> which I think says your MTA identifies itself in EHLO as
> ip-10-73-187-221.ec2.internal and not as mail.nypny.com. This could make
> a difference.
>

That was it. I didn't think that would make much of a difference, but
I changed the EHLO and it is no longer spam.

Thanks for the pointer.

>
>> According to the Bulk sender's guidelines :
>> I have mostly all done correct except the below
>> 1. Unsubscribe option - Don't have it since confirmation email means
>> the user hasn't subscribed yet.
>> 2. Use the same address in the 'From:' header on every bulk mail you
>> send. - This on mailman's confirmation email is sent as
>> list+confirm+<vars>@domain , and this changes every time. Is there a
>> way to make this consistent?
>
>
> It is that way because you have
>
> VERP_CONFIRMATIONS = Yes
>
> in mm_cfg.py for 'friendlier' confirmations. You can remove that in
> which case the From: will be (in your case)
>
> From: wg-request at nypny.com
>
> and the Subject: will be
>
> Subject: confirm+cf8341f8018591fef49bbfd5c5a8bf4a2f3b9066
>
> Sending confirmations with that Subject: is probably just as bad as
> having some end up in spam.
>
> --
> Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net>        The highway is for gamblers,
> San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan
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