Emails being blocked

W

WorldCom

New member
I have been with my hosting company for a few years now and been really satisfied with their service. Lately, our server has been blocked by outlook/hotmail ( for one ) for spam emails.
I send a support ticket and it seems to be unblocked for maybe a day or so, then gets blocked again.
I start checking our email reputation on talosintelligence.com, and it's POOR.
I don't have a huge reseller business but I do need my few clients to be able to send emails. I do understand that I'm on shared hosting and the billion of other accounts on our server are causing me problems. I think I may have to look for a new hosting account.

How am I going to know if I move somewhere else this isn't going to happen again?
 
WorldCom said:
I have been with my hosting company for a few years now and been really satisfied with their service. Lately, our server has been blocked by outlook/hotmail ( for one ) for spam emails.
I send a support ticket and it seems to be unblocked for maybe a day or so, then gets blocked again.
I start checking our email reputation on talosintelligence.com, and it's POOR.
I don't have a huge reseller business but I do need my few clients to be able to send emails. I do understand that I'm on shared hosting and the billion of other accounts on our server are causing me problems. I think I may have to look for a new hosting account.

How am I going to know if I move somewhere else this isn't going to happen again?
Click to expand...

if using cpanel/WHM then you can restrict accounts to an hourly email limit as all it takes is a user on the server send legitimate emails to a large client list and some email servers like gmail/hotmail deem this action as spam and block the IP.

Also rather than being on a shared account why not look at getting a VPS where you have more control
 
Last edited:
easyhostmedia said:
if using cpanel/WHM then you can restrict accounts to an hourly email limit as all it takes is a user on the server send legitimate emails to a large client list and some email servers like gmail/hotmail deem this action as spam and block the IP.

Also rather than being on a shared account why not look at getting a VPS where you have more control
Click to expand...

Here's the thing ....$$$$$ lol
I got a really good deal with this reseller program. I'm really not in the hosting business as the sites I have are personal and a couple of businesses. But god forbid if I were to get a new client and they start getting bounced emails.
Here's the latest I got back from support about this issue:
"The issue with this actually is that hotmail is blocking hundreds of IPs on a network above ours and is defusing to delist them. We spend countless hours trying to delist these but hotmail ignores both our requests and our providers. I'm looking for alternative options, but note we have the same issue to deal with for our own customers, so it is really the best thing for us too to get this resolved."

Is this a fair response?
For me, I could care less about hotmail as I still use gmail for personal emails. But, one of my clients has this problem and can't respond to emails that are business related and for me, one client having this problem is one too many.

Normally I would just look for a new host but my current host has been great except for this email thing.
 
WorldCom said:
Here's the thing ....$$$$$ lol
I got a really good deal with this reseller program. I'm really not in the hosting business as the sites I have are personal and a couple of businesses. But god forbid if I were to get a new client and they start getting bounced emails.
Here's the latest I got back from support about this issue:
"The issue with this actually is that hotmail is blocking hundreds of IPs on a network above ours and is defusing to delist them. We spend countless hours trying to delist these but hotmail ignores both our requests and our providers. I'm looking for alternative options, but note we have the same issue to deal with for our own customers, so it is really the best thing for us too to get this resolved."

Is this a fair response?
For me, I could care less about hotmail as I still use gmail for personal emails. But, one of my clients has this problem and can't respond to emails that are business related and for me, one client having this problem is one too many.

Normally I would just look for a new host but my current host has been great except for this email thing.
Click to expand...

but because you are using shared IPS, your host may have 1000 clients using the same IP and all it takes is 1 of them clients to be sending spam and this will affect all clients using the IP. The only way a mail service such as Hotmail refuses to delist IPs is that someone on the server is spamming and the host is not doing anything to stop this, so mail services wont spend their time and money delisting IPs just for the spam to continue.
If i were you i would find a new host that takes action against spammers, no good getting a good deal on a reseller plan if you cannot send emails when you want too
 
There are a couple options as discussed earlier:-

1) Migrate all websites to VPS
2) Ask the hosting provider to migrate your reseller hosting to another server IP which has the good reputation in terms of email sending.
3) Move to another host.
 
easyhostmedia said:
I am confused.
you have in your profile the URL http://www.worldcomhosting.com/, but according too http://whois.domaintools.com/worldcomhosting.com it says 'WorldComHosting.com is for sale!'
Click to expand...

Sorry that was an old domain. I updated my profile. It's been a while since I've been on here. I only come here to whine lol

I'm looking in to getting a dedicated IP.
All the advice here has been great.

As I side note, I looked into another hosting service and sent an email with some questions. It's been 3 days and nothing. Not sure how these people run businesses.
 
WorldCom said:
As I side note, I looked into another hosting service and sent an email with some questions. It's been 3 days and nothing. Not sure how these people run businesses.
Click to expand...

If they have not replied in 3 days then i would forget about them as even a 1 man band would be quicker if they cared about their business.
 
easyhostmedia said:
If they have not replied in 3 days then i would forget about them as even a 1 man band would be quicker if they cared about their business.
Click to expand...

I agree. It's really sad when people may never know business they have lost.

On a brighter note, I'm just waiting for my dedicated IP to be set up. I would really hate to leave who I'm with because the service has been really great.
 
WorldCom said:
I agree. It's really sad when people may never know business they have lost.
Click to expand...

Its just their lose, I am a one man band, i never advertise 24/7 live support, but as i am at PC from approx. 8am til midnight most days i answer queries within minutes or first thing the following morning.

I would never leave anything unanswered for 1 day let alone 3 days
 
I would suggest to apply the proper security on your server as well as it 's best to move the service from reseller sever to your own VPS. Also, it is best to have the only email hosting service on the other server which will just run the emails.

It's always in your hand to maintain the IP reputation of the IP address. Make sure to configure the exim properly to avoid the issue.
 
On my servers i always get at least 3 IPs

2 for the nameservers and 1 i set up as the mailserver IP and i use rblmon.com to monitor these
 
https://github.com/IntellexApps/blcheck

I use this script with the alot of lists

Code: 
#!/bin/sh
# -- $Id: blcheck.xml,v 1.8 2007/06/17 23:38:00 j65nko Exp $ --

# Check if an IP address is listed on one of the following blacklists
# The format is chosen to make it easy to add or delete
# The shell will strip multiple whitespace

# Unused RBLs


#       bl.spamcannibal.org

BLISTS="zen.spamhaus.org
        bad.psky.me
        bl.spamcop.net
        b.barracudacentral.org
        bl.blocklist.de
        combined.rbl.msrbl.net
        dnsbl.dronebl.org
        dnsbl.inps.de
        dnsbl.proxybl.org
        dnsbl.sorbs.net
        dnsbl-1.uceprotect.net
        dyna.spamrats.com
        fresh.spameatingmonkey.net
        ix.dnsbl.manitu.net
        multi.surbl.org
        noptr.spamrats.com
        psbl.surriel.com
        rbl.megarbl.net
        srnblack.surgate.net
        truncate.gbudb.net
        ubl.unsubscore.com"

# simple shell function to show an error message and exit
#  $0  : the name of shell script, $1 is the string passed as argument
# >&2  : redirect/send the message to stderr

ERROR() {
  echo $0 ERROR: $1 >&2
  exit 2
}

# -- Sanity check on parameters
[ $# -ne 1 ] && ERROR 'Please specify a single IP address'

# -- if the address consists of 4 groups of minimal 1, maximal digits, separated by '.'
# -- reverse the order
# -- if the address does not match these criteria the variable 'reverse will be empty'

reverse=$(echo $1 |
  sed -ne "s~^\([0-9]\{1,3\}\)\.\([0-9]\{1,3\}\)\.\([0-9]\{1,3\}\)\.\([0-9]\{1,3\}\)$~\4.\3.\2.\1~p")

if [ "x${reverse}" = "x" ] ; then
      ERROR  "IMHO '$1' doesn't look like a valid IP address"
      exit 1
fi

# Assuming an IP address of 11.22.33.44 as parameter or argument

# If the IP address in $0 passes our crude regular expression check,
# the variable  ${reverse} will contain 44.33.22.11
# In this case the test will be:
#   [ "x44.33.22.11" = "x" ]
# This test will fail and the program will continue

# An empty '${reverse}' means that shell argument $1 doesn't pass our simple IP address check
# In that case the test will be:
#   [ "x" = "x" ]
# This evaluates to true, so the script will call the ERROR function and quit

# -- do a reverse ( address -> name) DNS lookup
REVERSE_DNS=$(dig +short -x $1)

echo IP $1 NAME ${REVERSE_DNS:----}

# -- cycle through all the blacklists
for BL in ${BLISTS} ; do

    # print the UTC date (without linefeed)
    printf $(env TZ=UTC date "+%Y-%m-%d_%H:%M:%S_%Z")

    # show the reversed IP and append the name of the blacklist
    printf "%-40s" " ${reverse}.${BL}."

    # use dig to lookup the name in the blacklist
    #echo "$(dig +short -t a ${reverse}.${BL}. |  tr '\n' ' ')"
    LISTED="$(dig +short -t a ${reverse}.${BL}.)"
    echo ${LISTED:----}

done

with a wrapper script that picks up the DirectAdmin IP address list and feeds it to the above.

Code: 
#!/bin/bash

echo "Spam Report $(date)" > /tmp/spam.report

for IP in $(cat /usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/ip.list)
do

RIP=$(echo ${IP} | awk -F'.' '{print $4"."$3"."$2"."$1}')

/usr/local/directadmin/das/mail/bl-check-ip.sh ${IP} | grep ${RIP} | grep 127.0.0 | awk '{print "'${IP}' - "$2" - "$3}' >> /tmp/spam.report

done

COUNT=$(wc -l /tmp/spam.report | awk '{print $1}')

if [ ${COUNT} -ge 2 ]
then

/bin/mailx -s "SPAM: RBL Warning $(hostname)" < /tmp/spam.report email@address.com

fi

looks like I could have used more variables in the wrapper script, but it works very well.
 
While I understand the cost effectiveness of a reseller account, in your application, I'd seriously consider going with a VPS. Think of this in terms of hard and soft money. Hard money is the cost of the service itself and soft money is your time, labor and lost opportunities or clients.
 
I'll just clarify my position for everyone. I DON'T want to send a dime more than I have to. I'm not in the business of promoting hosting or other services. Right now I have a reseller account for $6 USD per month. If anyone has something close, feel free to let me know.

Now, I have gotten a dedicated IP ( another $3 USD per month ), which I though would be on all my reseller accounts ( 4 of them ). I'm not sure if this is going to be the case. It's on my main domain which isn't even the domain that I'm having email problems with ( because I really don't use it for sending emails ). The good thing is, hotmail emails are not bouncing back and the email reputation for the new IP is neutral.

So, did I just spend $3 that is doing me no good because it will not be applied to my reseller account?

Waiting on support.
 
WorldCom said:
I'll just clarify my position for everyone. I DON'T want to send a dime more than I have to. I'm not in the business of promoting hosting or other services. Right now I have a reseller account for $6 USD per month. If anyone has something close, feel free to let me know.

Now, I have gotten a dedicated IP ( another $3 USD per month ), which I though would be on all my reseller accounts ( 4 of them ). I'm not sure if this is going to be the case. It's on my main domain which isn't even the domain that I'm having email problems with ( because I really don't use it for sending emails ). The good thing is, hotmail emails are not bouncing back and the email reputation for the new IP is neutral.

So, did I just spend $3 that is doing me no good because it will not be applied to my reseller account?

Waiting on support.
Click to expand...

A dedicated IP will be assigned to a single domain, just ask your host to assign it to the correct domain.
 
Final update .... I hope.
They did assign the IP to all my current sites. So things are looking up.

Emails are getting through.
 
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