Howto Remove (delist) your mail server IP from
Hotmail, Live.com and MSN mail server blacklist
One of the mail servers I'm administrating has problems deliving
emails to addresses at
@Hotmail.com, @live.com and
@msn.com.
That's quite irritating especially when
all of the other major
mail servers, Yahoo Mail, Gmail etc. do accept my qmail server
messages in their Inbox.
Every email that is addressed to for example hotmail.com is
returned back to my sender folder with the message:
Remote host said: 550 SC-001 Unfortunately, messages from
83.170.105.141 weren't
sent. Please contact your Internet service provider since part of
their network is
on our block list. You can also refer your provider to
http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx#errors.
Right after my mail server delivery problems were reported by one
of my colleagues, the first step I took was
check if my
mailserver is listed in some of the major email blacklist databases
on the address:
http://www.mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx
By opening the above url in a browser and putting a server IP, I
was unpleasently notified that my mail server let's call it with
the fiction name
mail.server.com is existing in the
Spamcannibal blacklist dabase . Spamcannibal as most of the
blacklist databases.
To completely reassure myself my server host IP is in spamcannibal,
I've used spacannibal's website whois on the
url
http://www.spamcannibal.org/cannibal.cgi.
Of course this proofed one more time I'm listed in spamcannibal...
Thanksfully spamcannibal has a contact form which can be used to
delist an IP address from their blacklist right from their
website.
After a day of waiting my server IP was removed from spamcannibal
blacklist and therefore using the
mxtoolbox.com's website mail
server blacklist checker I've assured myself the mail server is
no longer in the most notable spam blacklist on the net.
SI've gave another try to deliver an email to my hotmail mail
account
myaccount@hotmail.com . The mail delivery was
unsuccesful again, the qmail failure notice daemon returned my sent
email to my
myaccount@hotmail.com once again with the error
of:
Hi. This is the qmail-send program at mail.server.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following
addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work
out.
<myaccount@hotmail.com>:
Connected to 65.55.92.136 but sender was rejected.
Remote host said: 550 SC-001 Unfortunately, messages from
83.170.105.141 weren't
sent. Please contact your Internet service provider since part of
their network is
on our block list. You can also refer your provider to
http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx#errors.
--- Below this line is a copy of the message.
....
The situation by so far was that I knew for sure my qmail mail
server IP is not listed in major spam black lists, but still i
couldn't say for sure that there was no minor blacklist where my ip
figurates, neither I was completely sure about the exact
requirements microsoft expects from my mail server.
Some of the presumed reasons which could think of could be the
cause the hotmail mail delivery failure errors were as
follows:
1. My mail server IP had no correct A domain name record or a
PTR record
2. My mail server was missing a correct SPF record
3. My dedicated server ISP has some blacklisted dedicated server
IPs which belong to the same IP range as the mail server
I've walked through each of the 3 expected reasons that might cause
the failure but it appeared that my mail server was configured to
fullfil each of the 3 aforementioned requirements.
To assure myself each of the failure reasons were untrue I issued
the commands:
linux:~# host mail.server.com
mail.server.com has address 1.2.3.4
linux:~# host 1.2.3.4
1.2.3.4.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer mail.server.com.
linux:~# host -t TXT mail.server.com
mail.server.com descriptive text "v=spf1 mx ptr mx:server.com
mx:mail.server.com mx:mail2.server.com -all"
Also I used the
kitterman.com's SPF Query Validation tool
located on
http://www.kitterman.com/spf/validate.html to
make sure my mail server SPF record is correct.
Another
way to check if a mail server SPF records are
correct is by sending a test email to for
gmail.com and
check in the email headers.
(To check the email headers in Thunderbird you can press
ctrl+U)
When the email source appears look for the field
Received-SPF:
pass (google.com:....
If the field says
pass this means your mail server SPF is
fine, if it reads
uknown or something different this means
it's not fine.
Next you will have to call your ISP and have a tech conversation
with the tech support.
As nothing of the above assumed possible failure was checked and I
was sure the email server is not affected by them
Further on logically enough I've pointed my browser to the
http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx#errors which
which was prescribed in the reject email returned from hotmail's
mail server.
On that URL I red the meaning of the
Remote host said: 550
SC-001 , Here is what it says:
550 SC-001 Mail rejected by Windows Live Hotmail for policy
reasons.
Reasons for rejection may be related to content with spam-like
characteristics
or IP/domain reputation. If you are not an email/network admin
please contact
your Email/Internet Service Provider for help.
Ain't helpful is it??! Well I think Microsoft has a tradition of
unhelpful manuals and documentation since the yearly days so that
hotmail mail server error code explanation wasn't that unexpected
;)
As I was out of ideas, I joined
irc.freenode.net and asked
for help in
#exim irc channel.
Thanksfull there was a guy with an alias
cannonball who gave
me a good hints which I followed.
First he suggested that I see and join Microsoft's
(Smart
Network Data Services) they're located on
https://postmaster.live.com/snds/index.aspx
Thanksfully the Smart Network Data Services could be accessed with
my hotmail mail account, credentials, but after logging in to give
me a real access to the site content I had to confirm, I'm a legit
person and provide an legit email address where I can receive the
confirmation.
As this went by in the
https://postmaster.live.com/snds/addnetwork.aspx I had to
use the buttons
Requert Access, View IP Status and View Data
to check the status of my
mail server IP address
1.2.3.4
After all this struggle in 1. Requesting Access to my IP, View IP
Status and View Data I finally found out the guess what unexpected
fact that
Microsoft's mail servers has blacklisted my mail
server IP Address!, How unexpected was that, heh ?!
So to sum up all this effort of registering in
Microsoft
SNDS gave me not any further clue on what I can change in my
qmail mail server installation to make the user emails deliver to
@hotmail.com.
After a bunch of investigation on the net, I've found another post
which discussess issues with the
550 SC-001 error reason for
a failed mail server deliveries to microsoft mail services.
Thanks God the post I've found pointed out that
Microsoft has an Eform for delisting / removing spam black listed
mail server IPs not able to deliver to hotmail and
live.com
Click over the link above and you will be pointed to
Microsoft's
annoying Eform for IP removal from their spam blacklist
The form needs to be filled and after that you can start praying to
God to be merciful and push up Microsoft to have a good will and
remove your IP from their mail spam blacklists.
The form filling takes about 20 minutes, there are plenty of
information you will have to fill in the form but try to be as
concrete as possible!
All the form fields are with
(*) - asterisk and therefore
are a required fields. After I filled up the irritating form, I've
faced the horror of Microsoft's Captcha!!!
Honestly I haven't seen a more bad captcha in my life, I can't read
anything on it, neither I can perceive what word or number it is
nor I can grasp whether the captcha shown letter is lower or
capital... it's really a terrible CAPTCHA I tell you! so beware and
try to put all your patience in while filling it in.
What made it even worser
this damend Microsoft's IP removal form
was the fact that it doesn't work at all with Opera and Epiphany
browsers.
I tried initially to use Epiphany and Opera to post the shitty form
but it was no go, it could not post!!!
Thank you Microsoft for making your form a platform incompatible, I
know you're really good in that!
I finally launched IceWeasel (Firefox) and filled in the boring
form once again and Thanks God this time it was properly posted as
you read below:
Sender Information for Hotmail Delivery
E-mail SupportE-mail Support
Thank you for submitting your issue to Support.
Your Support Ticket Number:1151722088
For reference, please print this page or write down your support
ticket number. Use this number when communicating with Support
about this issue.
To make sure that you can receive a reply from Microsoft, add the
"microsoft.com" domain to your e-mail "safe list". If you do not
receive a response in your "inbox" within 24 hours, check your
"bulk mail" or "junk mail" folders.
Print the page? I guess Microsoft are not very green company as they
suggest you to print it out ? ;)
Now I'm stuck into waiting and hoping that my removal request will
be regarded and in a couple of days of time I'll either hear a word
from Microsoft's tech support or directly get unbanned from their
spam black list.... Pfuuu