Postini Email Security Trial

[#1]

Should have one from me too, to an @username.plus.com mailbox. Jon's called the on call engineer too to have a look into it. No bounce as yet (sent about a minute ago so will check again in a couple of minutes).

[#2]

And 14 more sent (numbers 2 -15) for good luck.

[#3]

Hi Folk, just letting you know I'm another volunteer for the postini trial. Registered early hours 2nd Dec, had response 4th Dec. 1824, blimey that was quick  . Part of the response said -
The DNS records for your domains have now been changed to point to the Postini anti-spam proxy. Please note that due to the nature of DNS propagation it can take up to 48 hours for these changes to fully take effect.
Your mail exchanger records have been changed to:
MX      10 mx-postini.core.plus.net.
MX      20 mx-postini.last.plus.net.
Just sent myself (to my catch all mailbox@username.plus.com)  a test e-mail from hotmail. This arrived OK but did not go via postini . Will keep you updated as things progress.
Rgds.

[#4]

Thanks chaps. I'm off to get some kip - I have an early conference call in the morrow. Night.
Ian

[#5]

I've just tried another to myself from Google - it got through.
All of yours have come through Dave. They have all come via Postini and a variety of pih-criticalpath0n.plus.net and pih-sunmxcorenn.plus.net servers.
Digging on the caching DNS servers is still showing some with mx.core and mx.last - if the results of DNS lookups are varying depending upon the server used would that explain the intermittent nature of the problem?

[#6]

I've started getting notifications of replies on these forums but these are not coming via Postini

[#7]

Quote from: Anotherone

Just sent myself (to my catch all mailbox@username.plus.com)  a test e-mail from hotmail. This arrived OK but did not go via postini . Will keep you updated as things progress.

Yeah, that's normal. Over the next 48 hours or so you should see a mix of some mails going through Postini and some not.
If you send a mail to yourself then DNS server the mail server you use will look up where to send the email. So if you sent a mail before the trial DNS was set up it would use the old mail records.
The next mail that gets sent to you the DNS server doesn't look up the record as it knows (or at least think it knows) where to send the mail. So it sends it to the same mail records it has cached.
That will happen even if the DNS records are changed, so for a period of time (usually 24 hours) after the DNS records are changed if the old DNS records have been looked up by that DNS server they will still be using the old records until the time to live expires.
Which leads into part of what jelv is seeing...

[#8]

Quote from: jelv

I've just tried another to myself from Google - it got through.

Should all come through now. The problem wasn't to do with the Postini trial itself but a seperate mailbox issue that was only affecting your particular mailbox. There was an incorrect entry in the mail database (the actual cause of the issue is something the developers are actually looking into already).
That error then caused the mail to loop. And of course after so many loops the mail gets bounced.
The reason that some mail isn't going through postini yet is simply because the various DNS servers haven't caught up yet. All mine would have gone through Postini as they were sent using my own mail server which uses my DNS server so got the up to date MX records whereas the London and Sheffield caching DNS servers as you've seen will have a mix of old cached records and new.

[#9]

Thanks - I've done a couple more tests from Google and they've got through OK (Google's DNS seems up to date as they all came through Postini).
Would the mail database issue be something to do with the fact that my mail does not seem to be being virus checked even though the portal says it's turned on?

[#10]

Possibly, from what I understand the database entry was set to SMTP rather than POP but it had the mx.(postini).core/last mx records and no SMTP static IP which caused the loop, it knew to accept the mail but no clue what to do with it essentially.
Has the virus checking been not working for a while? I'd have thought switching off then on should fix it.

[#11]

Quote from: dave

Quote from: Anotherone Just sent myself (to my catch all mailbox@username.plus.com)  a test e-mail from hotmail. This arrived OK but did not go via postini . Will keep you updated as things progress. Yeah, that's normal. Over the next 48 hours or so you should see a mix of some mails going through Postini and some not. If you send a mail to yourself then DNS server the mail server you use will look up where to send the email. So if you sent a mail before the trial DNS was set up it would use the old mail records. The next mail that gets sent to you the DNS server doesn't look up the record as it knows (or at least think it knows) where to send the mail. So it sends it to the same mail records it has cached. That will happen even if the DNS records are changed, so for a period of time (usually 24 hours) after the DNS records are changed if the old DNS records have been looked up by that DNS server they will still be using the old records until the time to live expires. Which leads into part of what jelv is seeing...

Thanks for the reply and explanation Dave, I didn't expect it to go via Postini yet, but however, to satisfy the Geek in me, as I hadn't sent myself an e-mail from that hotmail address in eons, how come Hotmail didn't find the new info.?
EDIT. APOLOGIES, APOLOGIES. Just sent myself another test. Looked at headers, it came via Postini, looked at first test, also came via Postini. Didn't look at headers carefully enough first time. I think I'll bog off and get something to eat!

[#12]

Quote from: dave

Has the virus checking been not working for a while? I'd have thought switching off then on should fix it.

I tried that at about 4:15 this afternoon. Given that mails were coming through OK earlier in the day it has just crossed my mind to wonder if it was doing that was what broke my mail by turning the SMTP on?

[#13]

I suppose there's two explanations. The first is that someone else sent you a mail from Hotmail, the second is that the records haven't yet been updated on the authorative name servers. When the change is made to DNS it doesn't immediately change on the authorative name servers (ns1.force9.net and ns2.force9.net) where other DNS servers go to find out what the record is, it can take a few hours. I'd normally say 4-8 hours to appear after a change has been made.

[#14]

Quote from: jelv

I tried that at about 4:15 this afternoon. Given that mails were coming through OK earlier in the day it has just crossed my mind to wonder if it was doing that was what broke my mail by turning the SMTP on?

Could well be, I'll check the problem tomorrow and see if there's any correlation on there and if not let them know.

[#15]

Sorry Dave, see the edit on my previous post. Thanks. Rgds.