On 9/13/11 10:27 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
On 9/12/2011 5:39 PM, Quinn Comendant wrote:
We'll be deploying a mail server on a Rackspace cloud server, and
they suggested that because their offering is 'utility computing' the
IP addresses included are dirty (in a blacklist kind of way) and we
should use a commercial ESP such as SendGrid, PostMark, CritSend,
CloudSMTP, or the like.
Has anybody done research in this field? Any favorites?
We'll just be forwarding our outgoing SMTP traffic to their service
for its quality of deliverability. I doubt we'll use any of reporting
features, or even SPF/DKIM.
Quinn
I'm sure I'll get flamed but here is my $0.02
1) Rackspace is a server provider. They do not wish to know what your
doing with the servers they are selling you and couldn't care less.
They are completely and totally uninterested in providing technical
support to applications that run inside those servers and it is easy to
see why - they lose money doing it.
[...]
The reality is that there's no such thing as "utility" IP addresses.
If you have correct forward and reverse DNS entries, SPF records and
so on, and you have a public static IP number then you can run your
own SMTP directly, you do not need to forward to their mailserver.
This line of unadulterated bullcrap is something that Rackspace
manufactured on the spot in order to get you to stop asking them for
help running what you are supposed to know how to do already - your
own server.
I'm sorry but just having forward/backward DNS entries and DKIM and SPF
correct, doesn't help you much if you're running a server with IP
addresses which have (or are in a range with) bad reputation. Stories
like
http://www.lost-in-code.com/server-management/why-i-left-the-rackspace-cloud/
show that it can take a lot of (valuable) time to learn it the hard way.
Consider the number of IP addresses in the IPv6 universe. Consider we
are virtually out of IPv4. Consider that blacklists that would work in
the IPv6 universe would require man-centuries of computer time to
search for each incoming mail message. Now consider the future
usability of IP number blacklists and how absurd they will be in just
a few more years.
Although I tend to agree with your future predictions about usability of
DNSBLs, it is a fact of life that these days probably 50%-70% of all
spam is being blocked by mail servers using DNSBL's or proprietry BL's
(big Anti-Spam providers). This will not change anytime soon. Big AS
providers like MessageLabs enable their customers to select from a list
of DNSBL's to have their mail blocked. The customers I work for have
regularly problems with false positives, due to 3rd parties using lousy
DNSBL's. Please keep in mind, you have no control over what AS defense
your recipients use.
You do not need a commercial ESP. Sure a commercial ESP might be a
nice thing to have if you don't want to RTFM but you can send SMTP
just fine right from your Backspace-assigned IPs.
I'd take warnings about possible bad reputation of IP addresses serious,
from whoever they come.
/rolf
