Thanks for posting that, I never have used the mxtoolbox to check that kind of thing before. Might explain why my open rates have gone down since moving to godaddy.

Jamie is the only reason many of us stayed with HMS.

The support at Netriplex has found an answer to my SmarterMail with Plesk issue.

Now, when I test a domain name or IP at http://www.mxtoolbox.com and click on Diagnostics, I get all green dots showing that everything passed the test.

You can see an example by testing some of my IP's located at Netriplex.

67.23.186.165 or 67.23.186.166


I'll post the solution from support at Netriplex to help anyone else experiencing the same issue.

" We appear to have received the correct answer from Smarter Tools.com.

Turns out that in your SmarterMail configuration you needed to put the internal IP on the domain inside of Hostnames.

When making new domain with aliases. Perform the following.

Allow plesk to create the domains with the aliases, so that it populates with DNS entries.

After this go to the Aliases, turn off zone synchronization.

Then select the DNS for the alias zone.

Remove the PTR and MX records from there. "

christianweb, are you even using the DNS server on your dedicated server? I know the majority of our customers do not; rather they use our name servers for their DNS needs. Typically those who do run their own DNS have problems with stability (you should have a minimum of two name servers).

It sounds like SmarterMail was resolving your domains locally, and even though your server was not authoritative for the IP address. SmarterMail would have no way of knowing that If the server's resolver library was finding a PTR record when performing the lookup.

If you are not using DNS services on your server you should disable it altogether to avoid these complications.

You can check to see what name servers your domains are using with the nslookup command:



If none of your NS records are pointed to your dedicated server's IP address then you are not using the DNS service.

You can read more about the nslookup tool here, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/200525 , it may prove useful should you need to diagnose any further DNS issues.

Notice: The errors you see when I first run nslookup are nothing to worry about. These are generated due to the fact that we can't configure RDNS for private IPs.

Just wanted to end this discussion with a comment that I have finally moved nearly 60 clients from Host My Site to Netriplex. The move was basically pretty smooth. I have tested all my new IP address with http://www.mxtoolbox.com and they all pass the test. My sites are running faster, probably due to the fact that the new Netriplex datacenter is located closer to all my current clients. The service at Netriplex has been great with no complaints from any of my clients during the move. I am now on a Windows 2008, IIS7 server, using Plesk and SmarterMail 6.0. Things are going very well since the move. It was a huge decision to make but I'm glad I made the move. Getting ready now to completely close my account with Host My Site.