Current Status Updates
Bell Canada mail issue seems to be solved Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:46:56 -0400 » We are cautiously optimistic that the Bell Canada mail issue has finally been resolved. We are still running tests and keeping an eye out for reports and errors. Stay tuned for a more detailed follow-up after we get a post-mortem of the situation. Short version and something I'd like to put to rest right away: This wasn't "a Bell cock-up", it wasn't a Bell traffic shaping issue, and, in the words of one customer, this was not "typical Bell *mumble*". Everything we experienced working this issue proved the exact opposite: Bell tech staff and NOC-ops are on-the-ball, responsive, clueful and they know what they're doing. Our hats are off to them because without their persistence which culminated in a breakthrough last night with one of their guys and one of our guys sitting on the phone, running packet captures and comparing tcpdumps until close to midnight, we would still be chasing our tails on this. We are profoundly sorry for the heartache and pain this has caused some of our users. I will be making myself available for anybody who needs to make explanations downstream, to their clients, to their customers, or to their boss. Just shoot me an email or call me at extension 225 and we'll take it from there. Bell Canada mail problems to easyDNS domains Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:53:04 -0400 » After several calm interludes where we think the problem has gone away, it starts back up again and did so again today. To recap: People attempting to send email FROM network points inside Bell Canada, Bell Nexxia or other Bell ips (like from an ISP downstream from Bell), are finding that sporadically and randomly their email is being attempted to be delivered to the A record for a domain instead of the MX record, which can cause bounces if the two are different and the former doesn't normally handle email. We are well aware of the pain this is causing affected customers and while we're now running off of a DNS configuration we have been using for the better part of 10 years (i.e. no anycast at the moment) and we are only seeing this from Bell customers we have to emphasize that this issue is right now, and has been for close to two weeks: the number one absolute top priority within this company We're working on this literally around the clock. Here are some things you can try to lessen the pain if you are affected:
Again, this is the number one priority here, we have many many mutual customers with Bell and it we are fully cognizant of the need to get this figured out. NS1 and NS2 rolled back off of anycast Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:14:00 -0400 » We seem to have traced the recent Bell network mail delivery anomalies to unexpected behavior from the NS1 and NS2 anycast deployments. For the moment, we have reverted NS1 and NS2 back to non-anycast nameservers. We'll bring the anycast strands back online ASAP on new hostnames and commence an incremental cutover at that time. Bell Canada / Bellnexxia mail delivery problems return Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:26:48 -0400 » Last friday night Bell NOC staff informed us that based on our reports they had found an issue with their DNS resolvers and would be committing a patch overnight friday. This appeared to rectify things until this morning we began receiving reports once again that email originating on the Bell Canada, Bellnexxia network is sporadically being delivered to the domain name's A record instead of the designated MX record. We have been working closely with Bell NOC staff on this issue which is currently priority one here. Bell staff have been very responsive and forthcoming, we are happy to report. It's just that something weird is going on and we're all trying to figure out what that is. We are only receiving reports of this behavior from users within the Bell Canada/Bellnexxia network at this time. If this is having an impact on you, please forward as much information as you can to our support staff at support@easydns.com. We need mail headers, what local DNS resolvers you are configured to use, and if you can replicate the issue from a command line and email us the results we will be very much obliged. Thanks to all for their co-operation and patience in this matter. |
What's New
easySPF: An SPF Wizard Tue, 21 Aug 2007 20:06:14 -0400 » We've had customers asking us for a simple SPF wizard to help generate Sender Policy Framework (SPF) data. There are a few out there, but we have set up one at wizard.easySPF.com or spfwizard.com. As we iron out any usability bugs we will roll out some integration hooks to make it easier to pull the output from the wizard into your zonedata, but for now it's the old cut-and-paste. .CA registration only service rolled out at $19 Fri, 18 May 2007 11:56:33 -0400 » Happy Victoria Day weekend, eh? We're marking the holiday by filling a gap in our service offering. When .CA rolled out, we wanted to capitalize on our position as a premiere DNS provider by bundling our world class DNS hosting with our newfound status as a Registrar (this was very new to us at the time). Things are very different today and many of our customers have expressed the wish to have the option to register .CA's without DNS and have a price point that reflects that. So today we introduce the .CA domain registration at $19 CDN. As with our other gTLD registration and parking packages, this one comes with basic email aliasing/forwarding, so even if you just want to reserve a .CA domain name, you can start using it for receiving email right away. Happy May Two-Four! We are now tracking the Spamhaus PBL Wed, 24 Jan 2007 13:29:58 -0500 » We are now tracking the Spamhaus The Policy Block list. This list allows service providers to define blocks of IP addresses where e-mail should not originate from. This service should reduce spam and load on our mail systems. From the summary at Spamhaus: The Spamhaus PBL is a DNSBL database of end-user IP address ranges which should not be delivering unauthenticated SMTP email to any Internet mail server except those provided for specifically by an ISP for that customer's use. The PBL helps networks enforce their Acceptable Use Policy for dynamic and non-MTA customer IP ranges. Users who have been added to the PBL (most probably by the originating ISP that you receive Internet service from) have recourse; you can go to the page below which will explain how to get unblocked. More information can be found at this location; http://www.spamhaus.org/pbl/ Greylisting for email forwarded to Hotmail and MSN Wed, 13 Dec 2006 08:23:22 -0500 » Over the last few months, there has been a steady increase in spam and virus emails. Due to the nature of our mail forwarding service, this sometimes leads to ISPs and free email services being forwarded a large number of "junk" email. In the past, easyDNS has always strived to limit the amount of filtering that has been imposed upon the mail forwarding service that we provide. Unfortunately, in the case of Hotmail and MSN, we have been reluctantly forced to subject all forwarded email destined for Hotmail and MSN email addresses to "greylisting". More information about greylisting can be found here, at the following URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greylisting In short, greylisting is a method where a piece of email being relayed to one of our mailservers is initially deferred. This means that it is not accepted upon the first attempt, rather, the sending mailserver is told to relay it again at a later time. With standard mailserver configurations, such as those generally maintained by your ISP and free email service provider, the email will be re-sent at a later time, usually anywhere from 5-20 minutes. For spammers and machines sending virus emails, they generally don't operate like standard mailservers, and usually won't relay their email again at a later time. Right there, at least 50% of spam and virus emails have been effectively stopped. Unfortunately, with greylisting enabled for all email destined for Hotmail and MSN email addresses, this means that those emails will be subjected to a delay every time they are handled by easyDNS mailservers. This has been put into place to limit the amount of blocking that we have endured by Hotmail and MSN. The idea is that it is better to have email relayed a little late, than not at all. However, we do understand that there are some who rely on their email being relayed to their Hotmail and MSN addresses as soon as our mailservers receive it, which is why we do have a procedure in place to have your specific Hotmail and MSN email addresses removed from greylisting: Simply send an email to " support@easydns.com ", with your domain name(s), and the email addresses (along with their destination Hotmail and MSN email addresses) within that domain that you would like to have exempt from greylisting, and we shall update the filter as soon as possible. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us via email, at " support@easydns.com ", or toll-free at 1-888-677-4741. We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this implementation. | ||||
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