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Getting my Static IP address removed from a Blacklist...

firstalpha
Rising Star
Posts: 281
Thanks: 3
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Getting my Static IP address removed from a Blacklist...

Imagine my horror yesterday when I could not access my website, hosted elsewhere, by either FTP or HTTP because my Static Plusnet IP address had found its way into two blacklists...
I believe that this was because I did not have a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDM) associated with the IP address...
I have 3 domain names hosted in my Plusnet account and I have now added an 'A' record to one of them, hoping that Plusnet support will answer my support request sooner rather than later... (48-72 hours was the indication given by the Plusnet support person who I spoke to this morning)
I was also advised not to add anymore info to the support ticket because doing so would send my support ticket to the end of the queue...
I have managed to get my IP address removed from http://www.barracudacentral.org by registering at their website and requesting removal from their blacklist...
http://www.spamrats.com/ is proving to be harder to get removed from because I believe that I need to have a Plusnet network technician add my FQDM to the rDNS record...
Hoping that posting in this forum will help to get my issue resolved quickly...  Undecided
6 REPLIES 6
adamwalker
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 16,871
Thanks: 882
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Registered: ‎27-04-2007

Re: Getting my Static IP address removed from a Blacklist...

Hi there,
I've just checked and can see the ticket is with the right team so bear with us and we'll pick that up in due course for you.
Adam
If this post resolved your issue please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
 Adam Walker
 Plusnet Help Team
firstalpha
Rising Star
Posts: 281
Thanks: 3
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: Getting my Static IP address removed from a Blacklist...

Hey Adam... thank you for the fast acknowledgement... can you confirm that I have correctly diagnosed the solution to my issue?
The 'A' record which I added to one of my hosted domains is showing as pointing to my static IP address, according to http://ip-lookup.net/domain.php and I am hoping that once Plusnet add this to the rDNS record, an IP Lookup will reveal this information and SpamRATS will accept that I have complied with their reporting conventions...  Roll_eyes
KRs
Richard
jim:quote
bobpullen
Community Gaffer
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Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Getting my Static IP address removed from a Blacklist...

Quote from: firstalpha
I believe that this was because I did not have a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDM) associated with the IP address...

Which is odd because you do (I've intentionally munged your username and IP):
>nslookup 84.92.XX.XXX
Name:    XXXXXXXXXX.plus.com
Address:  84.92.XX.XXX

Not only this but the forward DNS for the FQDN maps back to the IP too:
C:\Windows\System32>nslookup usename.plus.com
Name:    XXXXXXXXXX.plus.com
Address:  84.92.XX.XXX

Quote from: firstalpha
I believe that this was because I did not have a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDM) associated with the IP address... I have 3 domain names hosted in my Plusnet account and I have now added an 'A' record to one of them, hoping that Plusnet support will answer my support request sooner rather than later... (48-72 hours was the indication given by the Plusnet support person who I spoke to this morning)

I'll pick this up now but the first thing I'd be questioning with Spamrats is why they think this:

When based on the information I've provided above, it's clearly not the case? Huh

Bob Pullen
Plusnet Product Team
If I've been helpful then please give thanks ⤵

pwatson
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Posts: 2,470
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Registered: ‎26-11-2012

Re: Getting my Static IP address removed from a Blacklist...

Quote from: firstalpha
Imagine my horror yesterday when I could not access my website, hosted elsewhere, by either FTP or HTTP because my Static Plusnet IP address had found its way into two blacklists...

I think you've mis-diagnosed your problem,  Both Spamrats and Barracuda (plus other providers) gather data to provide spam block lists for mail servers.  It is highly unlikely that your hosting provider blocks http and ftp access to your site on the basis of a spam list.
I suggest you go back to first principles and try pings and traceroutes to the name and IP address of your host to see what's going on.  It could even have been a temporary fault with the hosting provider...
firstalpha
Rising Star
Posts: 281
Thanks: 3
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: Getting my Static IP address removed from a Blacklist...

Thank you to all who added to this thread... and I can confirm that I have managed to remove my PlusNet provided Static IP address from both of the Blacklists on which it appeared Monday...
Trying to understand how my IP address got listed in the first place is not easy to establish and it is now apparent that the reason why the webhost blocked my IP address was because I had made several failed attempts to access my account with the FileZilla FTP client on Sunday... it is still not clear why this happened...
The positive aspect of this issue is that I have been able to find a lot of really helpful information about blacklists, DNS, rDNS, etc...
http://dnsgoodies.com/ has some useful lookup tools...
http://mxtoolbox.com/ helped with my understanding of the Blacklists issue...
I think there is probably still a lot of general misconceptions about what FQDM actually refers to... the change which PlusNet staff have made to my PTR record has now propagated and the effect is that there does not appear to be a MX record associated with my Static IP address... even though nothing has really changed about the way in which I am able to use the IP address...
I found the explanation at http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/show/934-how-reverse-dns-works helpful and I was surprised to discover that I could create an abuse@username.plus.com email address as an alias on my Plusnet email settings webpage...
I am really pleased to be a PlusNet subscriber and I am impressed with the way in which this potentially tricky issue has been resolved...  Smiley
KRs
Richard 
bobpullen
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Re: Getting my Static IP address removed from a Blacklist...

Quote from: Richard
I think there is probably still a lot of general misconceptions about what FQDM actually refers to... the change which PlusNet staff have made to my PTR record has now propagated and the effect is that there does not appear to be a MX record associated with my Static IP address... even though nothing has really changed about the way in which I am able to use the IP address...

There never be a direct forward association between your IP address and an MX record. An MX record belongs to a FQDN and points to a hostname which in turn points to an IP address.
eg.
C:\Windows\System32>nslookup -type=mx bobpullen.plus.com
Server:  pbs-intdns01.plus.net
Address:  84.93.219.251
Non-authoritative answer:
bobpullen.plus.com      MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = mx.avasin.plus.net
mx.avasin.plus.net      internet address = 212.159.9.200
mx.avasin.plus.net      internet address = 212.159.8.200

The original rDNS entry assigned to your IP will have had MX records because it's essentially the bit after the '@' sign of your Plusnet email address.
The new A record you've set up doesn't have any MX records associated with it because you haven't created any (and neither do you need to).
Glad to hear it's sorted though Smiley

Bob Pullen
Plusnet Product Team
If I've been helpful then please give thanks ⤵