I have a report this morning that email from one of our correspondent domains is not being reliably received. The specific ase was that three out of four serial numbered transmissions were received but the fourth had 'disappeared'. As we were only one of a number of recipients the missing message was retrieved from one of the others, proving that the missing message was indeed sent.
Looking at the logs from yesterday I discovered the following log file entries. There are selected from the entire log using grep 216.254.141.187 and modified to disguise the actual sender and recipient (YYY and XXX respectively) but are otherwise unaltered and are in chronological order. <pre> Mar 31 16:40:55 inet08 postfix-p25/smtpd[20524]: NOQUEUE: reject: RCPT from mail20.primus.ca[216.254.141.187]: 450 4.7.1 <tor-smtp-06.primus.ca>: Helo command rejected: Host not found; from=<y...@lightningequipment.on.ca> to=<x...@harte-lyne.ca> proto=ESMTP helo=<tor-smtp-06.primus.ca> Mar 31 16:40:55 inet08 postfix-p25/smtpd[20524]: disconnect from mail20.primus.ca[216.254.141.187] Mar 31 16:54:06 inet08 postfix-p25/smtpd[21129]: connect from mail20.primus.ca[216.254.141.187] Mar 31 16:54:06 inet08 postfix-p25/smtpd[21129]: NOQUEUE: reject: RCPT from mail20.primus.ca[216.254.141.187]: 450 4.7.1 <tor-smtp-02.primus.ca>: Helo command rejected: Host not found; from=<y...@lightningequipment.on.ca> to=<x...@harte-lyne.ca> proto=ESMTP helo=<tor-smtp-02.primus.ca> Mar 31 16:54:06 inet08 postfix-p25/smtpd[21129]: disconnect from mail20.primus.ca[216.254.141.187] Mar 31 17:05:51 inet08 postfix-p25/smtpd[21422]: connect from mail20.primus.ca[216.254.141.187] Mar 31 17:05:51 inet08 postgrey[1507]: action=pass, reason=client AWL, client_name=mail20.primus.ca, client_address=216.254.141.187, sender=y...@lightningequipment.on.ca, recipient=x...@harte-lyne.ca Mar 31 17:05:52 inet08 policyd-spf[21425]: None; identity=helo; client-ip=216.254.141.187; helo=tor-smtp-06.primus.ca; envelope-from=y...@lightningequipment.on.ca; receiver=x...@harte-lyne.ca </pre> <pre> ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;187.141.254.216.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR ;; ANSWER SECTION: 187.141.254.216.in-addr.arpa. 7200 IN PTR mail20.primus.ca. ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;mail20.primus.ca. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: mail20.primus.ca. 43200 IN A 216.254.141.187 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;tor-smtp-02.primus.ca. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: tor-smtp-02.primus.ca. 43200 IN CNAME mail.primus.ca. mail.primus.ca. 43200 IN A 216.254.136.21 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;mail.primus.ca. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: mail.primus.ca. 43166 IN A 216.254.136.21 </pre> postconf mail_version mail_version = 2.11.1 Can somebody explain to me what circumstance would account for this behaviour? Is this a DNS issue at their end? Is there something wrong at our end? I have not run across this specific type of problem before. I know that we reject for unknown hosts so the configuration is not at issue. Why is the host unknown at 16:54 and known at 17:05 is the question. -- *** E-Mail is NOT a SECURE channel *** James B. Byrne mailto:byrn...@harte-lyne.ca Harte & Lyne Limited http://www.harte-lyne.ca 9 Brockley Drive vox: +1 905 561 1241 Hamilton, Ontario fax: +1 905 561 0757 Canada L8E 3C3
