Mail Server / Hotmail Problem

For some reason the mail server aint receiving or sending to hotmail addresses... Does anyone know of some setting which could cause this? I havent altered anything at all. I tried several times, sending from a hotmail account to the server, and sending from the server to a hotmail account... neither ever arrive.

I dont get it, I mean it works with other emails fine...Even using a sign up form for say a phpbb forum with a hotmail address, activation email never arrives but using a normal address it does. Theres no bounce back error, or anything like that when sending, it appears to send fine just will not recieve hotmail messages or able to send messages to hotmail accounts. Im baffled, any suggestions anyone?

Many of the larger hosts block email from domains that the think are potential spammers or from IP's listed as dynamic. They rarely outright reject the mail, mostly they accept it but don't deliver it. You should be able to receive mail from them but it's possible that your host has blocked them for the same reason. Do a Google search and you'll see quite a bit of information on the subject.

I run my own server, this is not the case. No spam filter has been set or anything of the likes so thanks but that was not helpful. I am the host, nothing has been altered what so ever. I have one server that sends and recieves fine to hotmail, and another that worked until recently, but now it doesnt. Other email addresses send and recieve fine, just not hotmail. It makes no sense, no setting on the server has been implimented to block hotmail addresses, that is why I am baffled as to why this is happending.

What servers are you running? Are the IP's the same block?

They're all on Red Hat Linux 9.0, my second server is on a different IP block than the first one with the problems. I thought for some reason that hotmail was just ignoring my ip, which I thought was unlikely so I thought there was some problem with the mail server but it is only hotmail addresses effected. There is no spam filter set what so ever, as I have double check this just to make sure. The mail server appears to be functioning normally, except for sending / recieving hotmail emails. I did however have a problem with the mail server not recieving anything and I restarted all services and it came back to normal straight away and alot of emails were recieved but still nothing can be recieved or sent to hotmail addys. Im fresh out of ideas, as the mail server itself is working... *shrug*

Can you send something from a hotmail address to your server and watch the logs?

I dont see anything incoming in the mail logs when I send to my server from hotmail, but outgoing sending to hotmail from my server I get this.

Jan 1 10:15:44 ns1 qmail: 1072980944.298077 info msg 3703112: bytes 1345 from <address@removed.com> qp 23744 uid 2020
Jan 1 10:15:44 ns1 qmail: 1072980944.305509 starting delivery 563: msg 3703112 to remote address@hotmail.com
Jan 1 10:15:44 ns1 qmail: 1072980944.305571 status: local 0/10 remote 1/20
Jan 1 10:15:44 ns1 qmail: 1072980944.812033 delivery 563: deferral: Sorry,_I_wasn't_able_to_establish_an_SMTP_connection._(#4.4.1)/

It only does this for hotmail, other mail sends perfectly It just doesnt make any sense! Mail from hotmail to my server doesnt even make it to appear in the logs so I cant see what it's going there but these are the messages I get when trying to send out. I just dont understand it, how can my mail server work fine for everything but hotmail? Im very confused here!

Configure smtproutes. The answer is given, don't ask me how, google it yourself.

I dont think that is the answer, wouldnt I have to had changed something for me to have to go poking around in this stuff? Nothing was changed what so ever, so why would I suddently need to configure these things? The only information I found about what you were the path to the file var/qmail/control/smtproutes which does not exist on my server what so ever. Can anyone provide any further help? Some direction maybe? As to "google" it does not assist me as I dont even know what I am looking for exactly. *shrug*

qmail has a "smtproutes" file where you can specify the SMTP server/port to use based on the domain name you're sending to. E.g.:

echo aol.com:smtp.comcast.net >>/var/qmail/control/smtproutes


Given that I dont have a stmproutes file it seems that this information is not correct nor applys to my problem.

When you asking for help, you don't make assumption that the helper is as clueless as you.
If you really know the answer you wouldn't be asking questions here in the first place.
Next time before you make assumption to your helper, you should just ASK me for the exact search keyword if you are not sure. Use smtproutes hotmail
Finally, remember that you are asking for free help, you need to know your position. if you don't change your attitude you won't get any help from anywhere.

I wasnt referring to the information you gave me as inaccurate, I meant the information I found on google was. Sorry for the mis-interpretation.

Ok i found this information, but I just need to double check something ...

in /var/qmail/control/smtproutes, add:

hotmail.com:64.4.49.135

or this:

hotmail.com:mc3.law13.hotmail.com


The IP mentioned in the document I found is dead, is there some way to confirm the entries requiredfor hotmail? i.e to ping hotmail or tracert it or something? Considering I dont have a stmproutes file I am assuming that I need to "touch stmproutes" ? Is there any base template for this file, or does it only need the entries like above to be added in single lines? Sorry if all this seems stupid to ask, but I have never had to mess with any of this stuff ...

Use hotmail.com:64.4.49.135. But 64.4.49.135 is dead, so use another one.
Yes, create smtproutes file by hand if it doesn't already exist.
In case you don't know what is the problem with hotmail. When you received Sorry,_I_wasn't_able_to_establish_an_SMTP_connection._(#4.4.1) that means one of the MXs of hotmail your qmail contacts was unable to establish the connection because your DNS can't look it up or there is a temporary DNS problem on hotmail's end. The temporary means, if you retry it may work later. If you are getting this error consistently with hotmail, hardcoding the MX of hotmail in smtproutes file gives you the ability to override the MX priority of hotmail (without querying it for MX).
Ask far as which one to use instead of 64.4.49.135, it depends on the nameserver in your /etc/resolv.conf and which one you are able to look it up and resolve it to an IP.
hotmail.com has 4 MX, each of them resolves to multiple IPs, look them up and find an appropriate one, preferably in the 65.54.x.x range.

I cant ping any of these IPs, they all appear dead.

mx2.hotmail.com internet address = 65.54.252.230
mx2.hotmail.com internet address = 65.54.166.230
mx2.hotmail.com internet address = 65.54.254.145
mx3.hotmail.com internet address = 64.4.50.239
mx3.hotmail.com internet address = 65.54.253.99
mx3.hotmail.com internet address = 65.54.167.5
mx4.hotmail.com internet address = 65.54.253.230
mx4.hotmail.com internet address = 65.54.167.230
mx4.hotmail.com internet address = 65.54.254.151
mx1.hotmail.com internet address = 65.54.252.99
mx1.hotmail.com internet address = 65.54.166.99
mx1.hotmail.com internet address = 64.4.50.99
ns1.hotmail.com internet address = 216.200.206.140
ns2.hotmail.com internet address = 216.200.206.139
ns3.hotmail.com internet address = 209.185.130.68
ns4.hotmail.com internet address = 64.4.29.24

What gives? One of our service provider miss announced some of our blocks with their upstream provider the other day, it is fixed now but do you think this could be part of the problem? I am really out of ideas here, I appreciate your help. All them IPs appear dead to me, so I am not sure which one to add.

ping is not a tool to troubleshoot DNS problem. You telnet to that IP's port 25 for that. I for one feel that there is no reason to enable incoming ping, thus it's blocked at firewall level. That doesn't mean my servers aren't running properly.

smtproutes file is usually being used for:

1) smarthost configuration (hand off your messages to your ISP to do the delivery)
2) fix DNS problem like between you and hotmail
3) to route message to another location using another protocol such as mine using qmtp (mailroutes only, not smtproutes)