NYCPHP Meetup

[Marc Antony Vose]

Hi guys:

I labeled this out as 'OT', because it started out as a PHP mail() 
issue, but it apparently has nothing to do with PHP.

I am getting a bit desperate and honestly don't really have the 
budget for a dedicated sysadmin on this project, but I'll give 
someone some $$$ or some lovely item(s) from their amazon wish list 
if they can help me with something.

The problem, succinctly stated, is: the server can email some domains 
(such as mine, and gmail.com) and not others (such as mac.com, 
hotmail.com, and the client's).

The reason, I suspect, is reverse DNS issues, the server's 'SMTP 
banner' (which is wrong), or some other thing.

I think the client's domain is a special case, because the domain is 
on the same machine as a Web host, but the email is elsewhere.

But mac.com and hotmail.com and so forth are something else; they 
must be rejecting the mail (or possibly never receiving it?)

I'm not getting mail bouncebacks to the reply-to address, so it's 
possible that our server is holding the emails and not even sending 
them out.

The hosting company (servermatrix) told me that there are two likely 
causes:  reverse DNS and the resolv.conf file

I have had them add reverse dns pointers, and I checked myself that 
resolv.conf had their DNS server's IP addresses in it.

I've been reading about reverse DNS, and "Envelope-to:" addresses, 
and all sorts of other things, and it's not making much sense to me. 
I figured someone else must know the ins and outs of this stuff.

If someone can help me with this, or point me in the right direction 
of what to troubleshoot first, it would be greatly appreciated.  you 
could also contact me off-list.

Cheers,

-- 
Marc Antony Vose
http://www.suzerain.com/

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary 
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-- Benjamin Franklin