More SMTP errors

I'll eventually start putting up more information that I have regarding the various smtp errors that I seem to run into on a daily basis. It's never until someone's email server starts throwing up error messages do you really get that full realization of what the hell is going on with the server or your mail.

I hate spam and I hate viruses so coming up with a layered approach to prevent the incoming and outgoing crap is much needed. Once your email reputation goes down the tubes tempers will rise just as quickly.

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients

Working with different customers we always seem to run into the same type issues over and over. In a previous post I talked about the 4.4.7 Could Not Deliver Message error, this time has to do with not having permission to send.

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients. Subject: test Sent: 10/2/2007 8:33 AM

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

ruth@testdomain.com on 10/4/2007 8:58 AM
You do not have permission to send to this recipient. For assistance, contact your system administrator.
... Access temporarily denied. IP name lookup failed [196.25.11.101]>

The message failed going over to Ruth at testdomain coming from testo at 196.25.11.101. For this customer we actually found out that it was again a combination of missing reverse DNS records and possible blacklisting. You can do a Reverse DNS lookup on www.dnsstuff.com or on www.openrbl.org using either the CGI or JS client.

If you have Exchange 2003 at the site you are trying to research this for then another great tool to use would be SMTPDIAG. You can download it from here and read an article on how to use it here. It really helps with testing so you’re not sending 50 messages and then having to wait for them to bounce back or error out eventually.

could not deliver message time limit specified 4.4.7

We had a problem with email not being delivered to various domains. Here is an example of what the problem was:

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.

Subject: RE: DBA701 - Urgent
Sent: 4/13/2004 5:39 PM

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

'test@testdomain.com on 4/15/2004 6:00 PM
Could not deliver the message in the time limit specified. Please retry or contact your administrator.

The problem turned out to be that there were no PTR records set up for the outside IP address. We had to find the problem by doing a search of the PTR records on www.dnsstuff.com using this format
45.123.17.77.in-addr.arpa, the outside address is 77.17.123.45.

Of course now the format has changed at dnsstuff.com and you can just enter the IP address in the Reverse DNS Lookup box. While you're there you might as well get a full DNSReport too.

These errors can be pretty easy to troubleshoot if you use the error codes, You can reference those error codes using this document http://www.unixhub.com/docs/email/rfc1893.txt

Others have found out that their IP has been blacklisted, Am I blacklisted?

SMTP mail cannot be sent or received in Exchange Server