Emails originating from my server going straight to spam

@BipBop:

and curious what I could do on my server that would make other servers respect emails originating from me.
Attach each email to a $5 bill and then snail mail it. I'd respect that !

Hard to say since you don't list your domain. You know, the thing you're trying to troubleshoot and send to everyone on the internet but won't post here.

MX, PTR, SPF, all help (and none require you to run your own DNS server).

Hahaha.. well attaching bills is a novel idea. I'd do it if others returned the favor! I was just inquiring about some general guidelines, domain is sampleon.com

Mail Server     Preference  Subdomain   TTL     Options
mail.sampleon.com     10                     Default 

I am just working with the default domain values that linode inserts. Where would I specify the PTR record?

You have both a MX record and the assoicated A record, so your domain for email setup looks ok.

For PTR, look for the REVERSE DNS setting in Linode's DNS config page.

When you get your PTR setup, you can use http://www.emailtalk.org/PTR.aspx/ to check that it's working.

Not sure how Linode is doing SPF, if there's not a specific field for it, you can use a TEXT record to accomplish the same thing.

When you get it your SPF setup, you can use http://www.openspf.org/Tools to verify it's working.

I don't use Linode for DNS (we use DNS Made Easy to keep all our core services separate - i.e. registrar, dns hosting, web hosting, email hosting are all different vendors) so I can't help with the specifics.

Lots of people here do, so I'm sure if you get stuck someone will chime in with the step-by-step.

Also make sure your HELO and Hostname match, we get busted on that one every now and then.

Another good email server test is at: http://www.allaboutspam.com/email-server-test/ (although we never get their bounce - they list a page where you can get the results that were supposed to be emailed back to you).

Or if you have less then 10 accounts per domain, just move to Google Apps, way less headache.

Awesome thanks for the pointers man. Appreciate your help. :)