Milter-greylist

I hope that title makes sense.

I want to get the take of the milter-greylist community on the
exchange that I've forwarded below, since all of what they are saying
is soft evidence as opposed to hard knowledge or actual links to
documents. I don't think it makes sense or is correct.

Basically, what they are saying is that if I greylist sourceforge,
that can cause sourceforge to reject mail from me.

What's your take on this?



---------------

Chris Hoogendyk

-
 O__  ---- Systems Administrator
c/ /'_ --- Biology & Geology Departments
(*) \(*) -- 140 Morrill Science Center
~~~~~~~~~~ - University of Massachusetts, Amherst
<hoogendyk@...>

---------------
Erdös 4





-------- Original Message --------
Subject:     Re: [Bacula-users] Problems with the list
Date:     Thu, 1 Nov 2007 17:11:32 +0100
From:     Kern Sibbald <kern@...>
To:     GDS.Marshall <gdsm@...lmany.co.uk>
CC:     Chris Hoogendyk <hoogendyk@...>,
bacula-users@..., Augusto Lima <augusto@...>
References:
<4713.88.96.235.249.1193929015.squirrel@...>



On Thursday 01 November 2007 15:56, GDS.Marshall wrote:
> On Thu, 1 November, 2007 10:04 am, Kern Sibbald wrote:
> > On Wednesday 31 October 2007 21:20, Chris Hoogendyk wrote:
> >> Kern Sibbald wrote:
> >> > On Wednesday 31 October 2007 19:26, Augusto Lima wrote:
> >> >> Kern
> >> >>
> >> >> I'm having problems sending emails to the list. For a test,
i'm sending
> >> >> you a e-mail copying it to the list of bacula users. Have you
seen this
> >> >> kind of error before?
> >> >
> >> > Source Forge is *very* strict about who can send to a list. You
must
> >> > comply with all the email RFCs.  Typically things such as
greylisting
> >> > break it, not having reverse lookups, not having a postmaster
account in
> >> > your domain, ...
> >> > They have documented those things on their site, and if you
cannot figure
> >> > it out the only solution is for you to open a trouble ticket
with them.
> >>
> >> greylisting? Why should that affect who can send to the list?
> >> Greylisting works on the mail receipt end, not when sending. I'm on
> >> several sourceforge lists and a member of a project, and I've
never had
> >> any trouble. I use greylisting and a lot of other techniques to
> >> eliminate the spam hitting our front door. It's very common.
> >>
> >> I tried to find the documentation on the sourceforge site, but could
> >> not. Using google to search their site didn't help either (google
> >> "greylist site:sourceforge.net"), because they host at least a half a
> >> dozen different projects that implement greylisting for various mail
> >> configurations. ;-)
> >
> > I am not sure if Source Forge explicitly discusses grey listing in
their
> > documentation, but strangely enough, just a few days ago, a friend of
> > mine for whom my server acts as a mail relay  (MX) asked me to
check my
> > server log
> > for failure messages from Source Forge because he was having similar
> > problems
> > to the ones reported by Augusto.  Along with the log extract, I
suggested
> > a
> > number of things, and also mentioned that I had whitelisted the Source
> > Forge
> > sites in my grey lister.  He did the same, and the problem went
away --
> > so you figure it.
>
> Not sure if sourceforge do it, but if they do callout, you try send an
> e-mail through their server, their server calls your e-mail server to
> verify you really exist, (helo ... mail from: <> rcpt to: <you@..>)and
> yours greylists it.  Only sourceforge server does not know this, it just
> sees it as a rejection and fails your e-mail....
>
> I had a similar problem with one of the mail servers I manage and
another
> company rejecting our e-mail, once the greylist section was moved
further
> down, it worked, without changing any real functionality.

That is very interesting and could well be the basis of the problem. 
Fortunately, SF is easy to whitelist -- I just whitelisted their whole
IP range (66.35.250.0/24) or if you want to be ultra conservative,
only two IP addresses were critical (for me).

Regards,

Kern

>
> Spencer
>
> > Kern
> >
> >> Chris Hoogendyk
> >>