Gmail thinks my mediawiki mail is spam.

Ok, so I tried to register a mediawiki-account with a non-gmail-email account. That worked. So never mind this question. I'll ask in the forums for mediawiki or staff of gmail, since this is not a linode-issue.

Have you set the reverse DNS in Linode Control panel.

GMail might have a problem if they can't lookup your IP/Host mapping.

Just a guess, but give it a try

kangaby: I too thought it might have had something to do with reverse dns not resolving correctly. I sent a mail asking my registrar (joker.com) how I could change that since I'm using their nameservers instead of linodes. The first answer they gave me indicated they misunderstood my question. I'm currently waiting for their second.

What would you recommend; using linodes nameservers or the nameservers of whatever registrar one has? Pros/cons?

i think you have the problem arround the wrong way. He mentioned Rdns not normal dns

the linode name servers and ur servers joker.com do hostname->ip address resolving

What kangaby was talking about was Rdns, which is IP->Hostname

This is managed from the linode control panel under Network Setup, under Reverse DNS Manager.

Your dns servers at joker.com have no control over the resolving of your ipaddress. Thats something that linode have control of, so you need to set it there

Internat: I understand. Thanks. I didn't see the "Reverse DNS Manager"-link in the interface.

I have now updated the reverse dns information. But it has not yet propagated. How long can such a propagation take? I guess this particular propagation only depends on linode and not my registrar, correct?

Update:

It seems as if reverse dns information gets cached too. But now gmail seems to have refreshed their cache. Even though gmail resolves 64.22.124.128 correctly to d.neo101.org, gmail still thinks my mediawiki mails are spam.

Any ideas why?

I'll include the headers below. The first one is from my wiki, whose emails gmail thinks are spam, and the second header is from wikibooks.org. Gmail does not think the mails from wikibooks are spam.

Here is the non-working header:

> Delivered-To: harmoneNOSPAM@gmail.com

Received: by 10.114.135.14 with SMTP id i14cs22372wad;

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 03:22:42 -0700 (PDT)

Received: by 10.70.47.19 with SMTP id u19mr5945502wxu.1184494962353;

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 03:22:42 -0700 (PDT)

Return-Path: <www-dataNOSPAM@d.neo101.org>

Received: from d.neo101.org (d.neo101.org [64.22.124.128])

by mx.google.com with ESMTP id g9si39336430wra.2007.07.15.03.22.42;

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 03:22:42 -0700 (PDT)

Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of www-dataNOSPAM@d.neo101.org designates 64.22.124.128 as permitted sender)

Received: from www-data by d.neo101.org with local (Exim 4.63)

(envelope-from <www-dataNOSPAM@d.neo101.org>)

id 1IA1FS-0001OF-0v

for harmoneNOSPAM@gmail.com; Sun, 15 Jul 2007 06:22:42 -0400

To: Test <harmoneNOSPAM@gmail.com>

Subject: Password reminder from Testwiki

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

X-Mailer: MediaWiki mailer

From: www-dataNOSPAM@d.neo101.org

Message-Id: <E1IA1FS-0001OF-0v@d.neo101.org>

Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 06:22:42 -0400

Here is the working header:

> Delivered-To: harmoneNOSPAM@gmail.com

Received: by 10.114.135.14 with SMTP id i14cs22619wad;

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 03:30:51 -0700 (PDT)

Received: by 10.66.254.2 with SMTP id b2mr3468402ugi.1184495450810;

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 03:30:50 -0700 (PDT)

Return-Path: <wikiNOSPAM@wikimedia.org>

Received: from wiki-mail.wikimedia.org (wiki-mail.wikimedia.org [66.230.200.216])

by mx.google.com with ESMTP id d24si21732966nfh.2007.07.15.03.30.49;

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 03:30:50 -0700 (PDT)

Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of wikiNOSPAM@wikimedia.org designates 66.230.200.216 as permitted sender)

Received: from srv87.pmtpa.wmnet ([10.0.2.87]:41676 helo=localhost.localdomain)

by mchenry.wikimedia.org with esmtp (Exim 4.63)

(envelope-from <wikiNOSPAM@wikimedia.org>)

id 1IA1NJ-0003QR-Ff

for harmoneNOSPAM@gmail.com; Sun, 15 Jul 2007 10:30:49 +0000

Received: from localhost.localdomain (srv87 [127.0.0.1])

by localhost.localdomain (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id l6FAUnOK024387

for <harmoneNOSPAM@gmail.com>; Sun, 15 Jul 2007 10:30:49 GMT

Received: (from apacheNOSPAM@localhost)

by localhost.localdomain (8.13.6/8.13.6/Submit) id l6FAUn9A024386;

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 10:30:49 GMT

Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 10:30:49 GMT

Message-Id: <200707151030.l6FAUn9A024386@localhost.localdomain>

X-Authentication-Warning: localhost.localdomain: apache set sender to wikiNOSPAM@wikimedia.org using -f

To: Tommy <harmoneNOSPAM@gmail.com>

Subject: Wikibooks e-mail address confirmation

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

X-Mailer: MediaWiki mailer

From: wikiNOSPAM@wikimedia.org

P.S. I inserted the "NOSPAM" into every email address in this post.

I ran a DNSReport (www.dnsstuff.com) on neo101.org and it doesn't have an MX record indicating this domain does not have a mail server.

This may not be a problem or it might. (I don't actually know enough to know). DNSReport will not run against d.neo101.org unless it has it's own zone, which I'm guessing it doesn't because it failed.

The headers look reasonably similar and the SPF checks are passing so it should be good. (Again I'm just a novice here, so I could be wrong)

You could try installing a mail client (mail ?) and see if you can actually send mail from your server to the same account outside of MediaWiki if you haven't already done this.

Also try sending to a different mail account (your work place) and see what happens.

kangaby:

I tried to send a mail with the "mail" command, and that worked.

I tried to send a mail to my work address. That worked too. Gmail seems more picky about what it considers spam than my employer.

I haven't configured a MX record. That sound like it could be the cause.

I don't know what "having its own zone" means, but I'll wikipedia for it. Thanks for your tips!

Setting up an SPF record will help you with Gmail. Otherwise, the MX record is almost certainly the cure you're looking for. Check this article for how Gmail does sender authentication for non-SPF domains. Grab this PDF if you really want to know how Gmail filters inbound mail.

Thanks pclissold. I'll look at the information you gave me.

The posted headers say that SPF is passing for both e-mails, so I don't think that's it. The lack of an SPF record shouldn't be a problem, only if the SPF record specifies that your mail sender is not acceptable.

Likewise, the lack of an MX record is not in-and-of-itself a problem. SMTP servers will generally fallback to an A record if no MX record exists. (However, one should specify an MX record to avoid the multiple lookups.)

SteveG: thanks for your input.

I added a mx record for my domain and subdomains.

I added a txt record containing spf data.

I tried to send a wikimedia confirmation mail to my hotmail address. Even hotmail tagged it as spam. Below is the email I got from joker.com regarding my latest domain change:

> your Request has been processed with the following status:

successfully processed

–--------

DNS-Configuration for

domain:neo101.org

---begin-config

A:@:64.22.109.195

A:d:64.22.124.128

A:d2:64.22.124.129

A:p:64.22.109.195

A:p2:64.22.109.86

A:test:64.22.109.195

A:u:127.0.0.1

A:www:64.22.109.195

CNAME:phyzlo:rb-linux.dyndns.org

CNAME:rb-linux:rb-linux.dyndns.org

CNAME:todu:todu.dyndns.org

MX:@:50:neo101.org

MX:d:80:d.neo101.org

MX:d2:81:d2.neo101.org

NS:@:c.ns.joker.com

NS:@:a.ns.joker.com

NS:@:b.ns.joker.com

TXT:@:"v=spf1 a mx -all"

TXT:d:"v=spf1 a mx -all"

TXT:d2:"v=spf1 a mx -all"

TXT:p:"v=spf1 a mx -all"

TXT:p2:"v=spf1 a mx -all"

---end-config

I also sent a request for help to hotmail staff using their webform:

> Hello,

I want to make my wiki work with hotmail addresses. As you can see in my spam-box, the sender www-dataNOSPAM@neo101.org is tagged as a spammer.

What can I do so the emails from neo101.org are not tagged as spam?

I have already made a reverse dns entry so it matches the name of the domain.

I have also added a mx-record for the domain.

I have even added a txt record containing spf data since I read that both you and gmail check for spf data.

My server provider is linode.com.

My registrar is joker.com.

What can I do so the emails from neo101.org are not tagged as spam?

What I will do if no one here has a better idea is to wait more than 24 hours just in case some cache needs to be refreshed somewhere. I don't think this should be an issue though because I made all the changes before I sent anything to my hotmail address. Hotmails dns server should have had an empty cache regarding my domain since this was the first email they got from it.

However joker.com's mail regarding my latest domain change stated this:
> Please wait up to 30 minutes until the changes will be reflected in

our nameservers.
I haven't waited those 30 minutes before I sent my test (wiki)mail to my hotmail address. Thats my last hope. Or maybe "www-data" is tagged as a forbidden sender name for some reason? I'll post again and report progress when more than 24 hours has passed.

P.S. I added the "NOSPAM" manually for this post.

Try changing www-data to something else. It could be the spam trigger and you have nothing to loose by changing it.

When you sent mail from the mail command who did you use as the sender, www-data or something else.

If MediaWiki sends to your work email, does it get through or is it spam-tagged.

> Try changing www-data to something else. It could be the spam trigger and you have nothing to loose by changing it.

I tried to "su - www-data" first and then use the bash "mail" command to send a test mail. That worked.

I haven't tried to change every occurance of the textstring "www-data" in the mail header because there is one I not yet know how to change. I'll look into doing that somehow though.

> When you sent mail from the mail command who did you use as the sender, www-data or something else.

Before I used whatever I was logged in as, in this case "root". Today I tried "su - www-data" first. That email did not get tagged as spam. So it seems having the sender name named "www-data" is not enough by itself to trigger the spam tagging mechanism.

> If MediaWiki sends to your work email, does it get through or is it spam-tagged.

It gets through there.

I seem to have narrowed (part of) the problem down to this line in the email body:

> http://neo101.org/mediawiki/index.php/S … e4a30936a2">http://neo101.org/mediawiki/index.php/Special:Confirmemail/8536ac84c819099d32acdfe4a30936a2

Because when I have that line, and that line only, in the body, both gmail and hotmail tags it as spam when I use the bash mail command as root. When I do not have that line, but instead the word "test" as the only text in the body, it does not get tagged as spam.

If I manually copy the subject and body but replace the mediawiki url mentioned above, and use the bash mail command to send it, it still gets tagged as spam.

So it would seem that both gmail and hotmail are suspicious about every mail that gets sent from my domain and therefore tries to analyze the content of the mail body to make their final judgement. And in the case of the standard mediawiki "email address confirmation mail" body, they draw the conclusion that it is spam.

What I don't understand is how every other very similar confirmation email does not get tagged as spam? As I can remember, I almost never have to look in my spam-box for these kinds of mails when I confirm other types of accounts on other sites. How did they do to not have to ask all their users to look for the confirmation mail in their spam-box? I would give a bad first impression asking my users to do that.

Well I'm out of ideas.

The only thing I can suggest is float the question on the MediaWiki forums and see if anyone has come across this before.

There is going to be an answer, and it's probably going to be simple (once you know) I just don't what that answer is.