The problem with gmail and many other mail services is that they have an
ever expanding list of requirements to accept mail. The most well known are:
- your IP does need to have a matching reverse DNS record
- you have to setup SPF, DKIM and preferably also DMARC
- your IP (or IP range) must not have a "bad reputation" (whatever they define
that to be)
- your mail must not include certain types of attachments they do not like
And even with all these requirements fulfilled, I have observed many times that gmail
accepts a message with a 250 (OK) reply but does still not deliver its to its recipient,
especially when it is the first message from me to that recipient.
(even when that recipient sent mail to me just before)
As a coordinator I often get mail from people using gmail asking for an allocation, I
reply to that mail, and they never receive it. When I re-send exactly the same message,
they do receive that. Probably those mails are "suspect spam" (maybe because
they
mention literal IP addresses) for gmail and they drop them assuming that when it is spam
the sender never re-tries, and a human user will.
I am using a VPS to serve my mail, not really related to AMPRnet although it does have
an AMPRnet address as well (for my own convenience when accessing it from my network),
and it mostly works OK except for that quirk. I do fulfill those requirements listed
above,
and I do it using sendmail and opendkim (I am an old hat... used sendmail before all
those
other options became more mainstream). Postfix, exim4 etc should be able to do the same
thing. Configure them as a relay to be used by other software (and protected against open
relaying), and so that it adds the DKIM signature for your own mail.
Rob
On 10/11/21 4:24 AM, Charles - N2NOV via 44Net wrote:
This may be beyond the scope of some since I mentioned
JNOS, but the
basics should be the same. I have been running the
n2nov.ampr.org JNOS
system since the late 90s, but recently any emails that I send to GMAIL
and some other services are being rejected.