Email / WHM problems

[reachtec]

Hi Gators,

Firstly, I thank the various techs that have all responded promptly, and each contributed part of the solution to my problem. I am posting this so as I can get a bit more collaboration in the work being completed - we keep going around in circles.

I have two problems

1. Email from our parent organisation cannot be sent to our domain
(Ticket ID: LQE-400219)

2. I am recieving errors in my Cpanel / WHM
(Ticket ID: NIG-437167)


PROBLEM ONE:

When an email is sent from any user to our domain from our parent organisation (they host an exchange server) they recieve an undeliverable message as follows:

_____________________________________________
From: System Administrator
Sent: Friday, 19 May 2006 3:25 PM
To: xxmyuserxx@xxmydomainxx.com.au
Subject: Undeliverable: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)

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

Subject:
Sent: 19/05/2006 3:25 PM

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

'My Name' on 19/05/2006 3:25 PM
There was a SMTP communication problem with the recipient's email
server. Please contact your system administrator.
<temp-mail.xxparentcompanynamexx.org.au #5.5.0 smtp;550-Verification
failed for xxuserxx@xxparentcompanynamexx.org.au>

This occurs with every user on thier Exchange system. I do not have any spam functions implemented through CPanel.

So far I have had the following responses from HostGator, and my responses:

Hello,
The mails are working for your account.We checked through test account.But we were not able to locate the email account xxmyuserxx@xxmydomainxx.com.au in your cpanel.

This account does not in fact exist. It is a forwarder to our exchange server. Whether it’s a forwarder or a pop account we get the same error. A pop account that you might try is xxanotheruserxx@xxmydomainxx.com.au. Our sister company Organisation Name is also working with you on this issue, I believe their ticket is [#QFF-694681].

Please let us know the password for xxanotheruserxx@xxmydomainxx.com.au so that we can check at our side.

Password is xxpasswordxx

Hello,
The forwarders are working for your account.Do you mean that forwarder has been set to account xxmyuserxx@xxmydomainxx.com.au ?If yes then this account should exist in your cpanel >> mails >> add/remove accounts section.

Our situatation is as follows:

We have purchased exchange mailboxes from another company.
The addresses are like:
xxboxnumber@bne.xxexchangeserverxx.com

To make it nice and easy for our customers we have set up a forwarder on Cpanel:
xxmyuserxx@xxmydomainxx.com.au >> xxboxnumber@bne.xxexchangeserverxx.com

We also have some pop boxes:
xxanotheruserxx@xxmydomainxx.com.au

When our parent company Organisation Name sends us emails, whether its through the forwarder, or direct to a pop up they receive an 550 authorisation error - unable to verify user (their user, not ours). They have lodged a ticket about it (aforementioned), and so have we.

Have you contacted the exchange server about this, as the forwarders are set up correctly as mentioned?

As we receive the same error whether it's forwarded to exchange, or delivered to local POP, it cannot be an issue with the third party.

Both shelby.websitewelcome.com completes user verification when sending/relaying mail. So when sending an email:

220-shelby.websitewelcome.com ESMTP Exim 4.52 #1 Wed, 24 May 2006 20:39:31 -0500
220-We do not authorize the use of this system to transport unsolicited,
220 and/or bulk e-mail.
HELO
250 shelby.websitewelcome.com Hello [210.15.192.194]
MAIL FROM:xxmyuserxx@xxmydomainxx.com.au
250 OK
RCPT TO:xxanyuserxx@xxparentorganisationxx.com.au
550-"The recipient cannot be verified. Please check all recipients of this
550 message to verify they are valid."


To complete the verification shelby.websitewelcome.com should open smtp session with tempmail.parentorganisation.org.au to verify the user:

220 TEMP-MAIL.xxparentorganisationxx.org.au Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service, Version: 6.0.37
90.1830 ready at Thu, 25 May 2006 11:42:15 +1000
HELO
250 TEMP-MAIL.xxparentorganisationxx.au Hello [210.15.192.194]
MAIL FROM:xxmyuserxx@xxmydomainxx.com.au
250 2.1.0 xxmyuserxx@xxmydomainxx.com.au....Sender OK
RCPT TO:xxanyuserxx@xxparentorganisationxx.com.au
250 2.1.5 xxanyuserxx@xxparentorganisationxx.com.au
DATA
354 Start mail input; end with <CRLF>.<CRLF>
Test.
.
250 2.6.0 <TEMP-MAILIE0NHg246J00000621@TEMP-MAIL.xxparentorgansiationxx.org.au> Queued ma
il for delivery
QUIT
221 2.0.0 TEMP-MAIL.xxparentorgansiationxx.org.au Service closing transmission channel

But for some reason Shelby is not verifying the address. Therefore we can assume that when mail is sent from temp-mail.xxparentorganisationxx.org.au to Shelby.websitewelcome.com that the same thing is occurring. In essence
I believe Shelby.websitewelcome.com is not correctly verifying the users, and thus bouncing emails.

Hopefully this helps.

Are any of the same domains setup on both servers?
Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with

Funny you should mention that. I know one of our techs created a DNS zone for xxparentorganisationxx.org.au in our WHM. Then, once I'd realised what he'd done I deleted it - BUT, I know we've been having trouble with our WHM (NIG-437167) which may be causing the issue. Could you check our bind config on Shelby to see if xxparentorganisationxx.org.au exists - and if so delete it?

Hopefully this will be the breakthrough we are after

[reachtec]

PROBLEM TWO:


We are seeing some on ghost accounts on our server

http://www.reachtechnology.com.au/ghost.JPG

When I try and create an account we get the error:

[an error occurred while processing this directive]Added Entries to httpd.conf

Noone has been able to give me an answer, but each time have been able to rectify the specific issue I ask to be fixed (ie removing or adding a specific domain).


SOLUTION:

Maybe my httpd and bind configurations are corrupt. I don't know whether these can be reset.

Also - I will be interested to see if this DNS entry that might not have come off the system will fix the issue.

I look forward to a response .

Cheers

John

[reachtec]

Reply from Technical support today:

We configure outlook for the account xxauserxx@xxmydomainxx.com.au and we are able to send and receive mail. Please check following header =========================================
Return-path: <xxhostgatortestaccountxx@yahoo.com>
Envelope-to: xxauserxx@xxmydomainxx.com.au
Delivery-date: Thu, 25 May 2006 20:57:35 -0500
Received: from web32905.mail.mud.yahoo.com ([68.142.206.52]:45943)
by shelby.websitewelcome.com with smtp (Exim 4.52)
id 1FjRa3-0003CM-AH
for xxauserxx@xxmydomainxx.com.au; Thu, 25 May 2006 20:57:35 -0500
Received: (qmail 51324 invoked by uid 60001); 26 May 2006 01:57:28 -0000
DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws;
s=s1024; d=yahoo.com;
h=Message-ID:Receivedate:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding;
b=kC25jzw+DaBcH9gx1vYesGbjcCfSY8Qx4rh+SMsVw5WJoJsu Kk1DDxqfb9kl4s38M4TQF5s4X6/IHZqMZq+dHWWx1m1PKn6pQyLfWYpjBarcjab+YiIG61j8BJmm3 f4Nf6IzjPbcUmTWYuaCIgWuqAqpeyXmSIXCEo84xdz8c4M= ;
Message-ID: <20060526015728.51322.qmail@web32905.mail.mud.yahoo .com>
Received: from [203.193.165.114] by web32905.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Thu, 25 May 2006 18:57:28 PDT
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 18:57:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: test test <xxhostgatortestaccountxx@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: test
To: xxauserxx@xxmydomainxx.com.au
In-Reply-To: <009901c68067$a255b2f0$380a0a0a@esdssoftwares.net>
X-Antivirus: AVG for E-mail 7.1.394 [268.7.1/347]
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="=======AVGMAIL-447660846490======="
===============================================
From: <xxauserxx@xxmydomainxx.com.au>
To: "test test" <xxhostgatortestaccountxx@yahoo.com>
Subject: test
Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 07:26:31 +0530
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.3790.0
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.3790.0 ============================================

And my response.

Yes, I entirely agree, there is no doubt that this mailbox can send and receive mail. I am seeking support in a specific issue regarding email from ONE DOMAIN only. This domain is unable to send emails TO us. I was hoping someone could provide us with some advice based on the detailed information I have provided.

[reachtec]

Just had another response which was a statement that our forwarding was not working, which it is - as this is how they contact me

My response:

Sorry this must have been a typo, the address we are forwarding to is:
xxboxnumberxx@bne.xxexchangeserverxx.com

Which is obviously working, because that’s how you're getting these emails to me.

Again, I reiterate, the problem is only from users sending email to us from a specific domain. Another tech was onto something when he was suggesting it might be a DNS issue.

Can you resolve the address temp-mail.xxparentorganisationxx.org.au from Shelby. If so is it xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx(the right ip)? If it can be resolved, can an SMTP session be made from Shelby to this address, and can it authenticate a user xxuserxx@xxparentorganisationxx.org.au?

[reachtec]

This should read verify not authenticate :$

[reachtec]

SOLUTION FOUND

We're currently able to do so from Yourhostgatorserver:
220 TEMP-MAIL.parentorganisation.org.au Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service, Version: 6.0.3790.1830 ready at Fri, 26 May 2006 14:23:25 +1000 HELO parentorganisation.org.au 250 TEMP-MAIL.parentorganisation.org.au Hello [70.87.94.194] QUIT

However it appears that parentorganisation was left in the 'localdomains' file and you should now be able to mail back and forth.

Thank you for your time!

So what had happened is that at one stage one of our techs had created a DNS entry for our parent organisation in our WHM. Of course when I realised what had happened I deleted it, but it had not been fully removed from the server.

Moral of the story - be perisistant but calm with Tech Support - you'll get there in the end. Thanks to the HostGator support team .