Yeah, you're right that mail.unleash.co.nz doesn't exist, but the MX records for unleash.co.nz point to mail.unleash.net.nz/mail2.unleash.net.nz... -Michael On Sat, 2007-05-05 at 10:50 +1200, Jo Booth wrote:

On 5/05/2007, at 10:21 , Michael Fincham wrote:

...

Is anyone else experiencing this error delivering mail to freeparking hosting customers:

<address removed>: host mta.hosts.net.nz[210.48.108.65] said: 451- Unable to validate michael(a)unleash.co.nz with the MX mailserver for 451 unleash.co.nz (in reply to RCPT TO command)

We've been getting this message for several weeks when we attempt to deliver mail to Freeparking hosted customers.

It doesn't seem like postmaster@ is being monitored, certainly I haven't received a reply from the several e-mails I've sent, and Freeparking's phone support people weren't any help.

Any suggestions?

It seems to me reading the error that the server is unable to talk to the MX server for unleash to verify the email address. I for one can't seem to connect to mail.unleash.co.nz - seems to be a dns thing.

...

Onyx:~ jo$ telnet mail.unleash.co.nz 25 mail.unleash.co.nz: No address associated with nodename

I have been know to be wrong, and my internet connectivity at present isn't the best. ;)

-Jo. Mesh|net -- -Michael Fincham Unleash Technology Solutions

On Sat, 5 May 2007, Jo Booth wrote:

It seemed to take about 30 seconds to return an OK to the unleash address.

One thing they are doing is connecting to my mail server and running a VRFY against the address you specify ( of course 99% of mail servers block verify) : 2007-05-05 16:33:04 verify failed for SMTP recipient bogusaddress(a)darkmere.gen.nz from <> H=gobo.hosts.net.nz [210.48.108.207] and they also count a timeout as a failure I guess so when I try a few minute later: 220 Iconz Hosting Group SMTP frontend - ESMTP - red helo boggle 250 red.hosts.net.nz Hello green.darkmere.gen.nz [202.49.59.210] mail from: rcpt to: 250 OK 550 Previous (cached) callout verification failure (0/1) It's all fairly standard anti-spam stuff. These days they best way to ensure your mail gets through is to send via a server that: (a) Originates *only* non-spam [1] (b) Sends enough email per day that the receivers see it as a "good guy" rather than an "unknown". and of course remember that you'll still lose the odd one. [1] Better still would be one that doesn't originate any general bulk email like HTML mailouts from companies. Some people add these to spam filters instead of unsubscribing. They also trigger general filters easily. -- Simon Lyall | Very Busy | Web: http://www.darkmere.gen.nz/ "To stay awake all night adds a day to your life" - Stilgar | eMT.

Hi, On Sat, 2007-05-05 at 16:52 +1200, Simon Lyall wrote:

On Sat, 5 May 2007, Jo Booth wrote:

...

It seemed to take about 30 seconds to return an OK to the unleash address.

The 30 seconds will be the SPF checks slowing the connection down, we check the SPF record on a domain and if the connecting IP fails (soft or hard) the SPF check the servers will stall the connection for a period of time (depending on the failure type)

One thing they are doing is connecting to my mail server and running a VRFY against the address you specify ( of course 99% of mail servers block verify) :

We dont run VRFY's against mail servers, only a callout where we connect to the mail server and run MAIL FROM: <> RCPT TO: <sender address> If that fails we 'reject' the email. If the server does not respond we will allow the email through. -- Bruce Parker Development Leader DDI +64 6 757 2881 WebFarm Limited I Level 2, 2 Devon Street East, New Plymouth, New Zealand I Telephone +64 6 757 2881 I Facsimile +64 6 757 2883 ICONZ I WebFarm I Freeparking I 2day.com I Worldpay Specializing in Domain Name Registration, Web Hosting, Internet & E-Commerce Solutions