Use the instructions here

http://hostmysite.com/support/smartermail3/emailfilter/

to create a filter that checks the headers for that IP address.

Concerning that particular step in setting up Postini, I have 4 MX records noted as follows...

mydomain.com.s7a1.psmtp.com.
mydomain.com.s7a2.psmtp.com.
mydomain.com.s7b1.psmtp.com.
mydomain.com.s7b2.psmtp.com.

But, I also have a mail CNAME (Alias) noted as mail49.safesecureweb.com. Does that need to be changed?

You don't *have* to - that CNAME is what allows you to browse to your webmail by typing in

mail.DOMAIN.xyz

or connect to it using the same in MS Outlook, etc.

One thought on this though is that spammers will send directly to common CNAMES like

mail.
smtp.
pop3.
etc,

so you may want to consider adding a less obvious one and removing the mail CNAME. Maybe something like

messages.
mymail.
nospam.

etc. I don't know if there's any merit to that, but it's a thought.

So, I would create this less obvious prefix on a new MX record and use it for my POP/SMTP server in OutLook and also for accessing SmarterMail?

Right, though again I'm not sure how effective that will be. I've heard mention of it in other 'email geek' forums but never seen the validity of it myself.

If nothing else I guess I can say that I'm sure it won't hurt anything to do something like this. After all, what's in a name?

Well, I hate to say it but I decided to cancel my Postini trial. In the week that I was using it I missed several important emails. They were not quarantined — they just dissapeared!

Without Postini, I am receiving dozens of obvious SPAM messages that SmarterMail is marking as SPAM-LOW. The bad part is that practically all my legit email is also marked SPAM-LOW, so I cannot use rules to filter messages locally by subject. The only way I see around this is to use the approved sender list in SmarterMail, but I simply deal with too many people for that to be practical.

In the past with SpamAssasin, all I did was create a mail filter to idenitify headers as *X-Spam-Flag: YES* and I was virtually SPAM-free.

Unfortunately, SPAM control seems to be the only downside to HMS hosting, but it is a pretty big one in my opinion. It seems I am caught between receiving too much SPAM or missing valid email.

So, here is my question... I really like SmarterMail as a webmail system, but SPAM filtering leaves alot to be desired. If I were to get a VPS and use it as a mail server for all my domains, could use SmarterMail and SpamAssasin to get more control over filtering?

Howard,
you definetly could. As Jamie pointed out above, the only reason SpamAssasin isn't being used is because it is hard to use it for more than 45, 000 incoming emails a day. On a VPS, you would get your own license of Smartermail for free, and you could run SpamAsassin.

Just to clarify:
- For the time being, the SmarterMail that comes with Windows VPS's is SmarterMail 3. SmarterMail 3 incorporates some of the SA rules in, but does not specifically use SpamAssassin. There is a program called SMSpamC which acts as a SpamAssassin client, but it does not come included.
- You could upgrade to SmarterMail 4, but you would have to get an upgrade license.
- SmarterMail 4 does have a free edition, but it is limited to 1 domain and 10 users.

As Brian was stating earlier, if you are unhappy with postini then something may be wrong. Usually its either an MX record added that shouldn't be there. You may have a domain alias or email alias setup. You may have forwarding on from another email address etc. If you place a ticket into support we can take a look for you and see if we find anything.

-Ray

It appears that Postini delivers from IPs other than the one listed by Jamie:

Received: from psmtp.com (exprod7mx232.postini.com [64.18.2.185])

I'm looking for a more complete set of IPs from which Postini should be sending mail and will update this thread if I can find more information.

================================
The ranges listed in Postini's SPF record Knowledge Base Article:
207.126.144.0/20
64.18.0.0/20

A more complete listing can be found here by doing a DNS lookup on the spf record for Postini:

dig +short TXT spf.postini.com
"v=spf1 ip4:64.18.0.0/20 ip4:207.126.144.0/20 ip4:204.14.232.0/22 ip4:63.146.199.13/32 ip4:63.146.199.14/32 ip4:68.123.185.46/32 ip4:67.114.133.222/32 ip4:63.71.11.123/32 ip4:63.71.11.124/32 ip4:208.111.151.5/32 ip4:208.74.204.5/32 -all"

I recommend only the first two ranges from the KB article.

If you are making a content filter for postini then you should select

From Specific Domains
From Trusted Senders
Email Headers

and

Sent through a specific server (by IP) - This is under the Other category.

Click NEXT

select OR - One or more criteria must be met

Next to the From Domains type in your domain, and any domain alias that you may have (domain.com domain.net domain.xyz etc)

Next to Email Headers put postini.com on one line, and the next line put psmtp.com on the next

Next to Sending Server IP's put in 64.18.0.0-64.18.15.255 and then on the next line put in 207.126.144.0-207.126.159.255

Hopefully this should cover everything that postini will send from. Using a content filter is risky, as if they change their IP address or naming schema then this filter will not be tripped and it will go onto the next filters, which either delete or put into the junk mail folder.

Click NEXT

Rule name: put in 'From Postini/Local'

Check 'Move message to folder' and put in the Inbox as the folder.

Click Save

This filter should be near the top of your list, or under any 'legitimate mail' type filters (such as moving newsletters into the newsletters folder...)


The following filter should be at the bottom of your content filter list.

Select 'Anywhere in message'

Click Next

Select OR

Next to 'Anywhere in message' put in a @ symbol (just an @ symbol in the text box)

Click NEXT

put a rule name of 'Not From Postini'

I would recommend either prefixing the subject with 'SPAM-' or moving to the 'junk email folder'. This way if there are any false positives you still have access to the message.

If you need any assistance in setting this up please email support@hostmysite.com so that we can help.

I have signed up as well for postini, it has reduced around 20-25% of my spam yet I am still getting considerable amounts, almost now as much as before.

My biggest gripe is that recently I have been getting outgoing email's rejected through smartermail, yet a HMS rep has configured it and I have not touched it since. I sent in the emails that were rejected, just simple text emails, no attachments, and I have yet to get a reply, going on 3 days now I believe.

I have had numerous email rejection/outoing issues and it seems to be more now after I signed up with Postini.

Is there some way to edit/configure postini better to eliminate more of the junk mail I'm receiving and have either postini or smartermail STOP rejecting my email outgoing???

I even get spammed by my own email account, and that's after I signed up with postini, it's been almost a month now I believe.

Hey,

It should not be three days and no one has replied, I know it has been busy over the past few days but the turn around time between responses should be only a few hours. Can you email support@hostmysite.com again and put the bounce notifications / problem in the body? You should automatically get a reply email with the ticket number. Then send me a private message here with the ticket number and I can look into it for you. If you do not get an automated response with the ticket number can you please chat in using our live chat feature, or call the 877.215.4678 number and have a technician open a ticket and put it into my name. I will then look into the problem for you.

-Ray

Well no official responses, I've sent in 4 or 5 emails to them in regards to my email being rejected and vice versa on other peoples ends trying to send me email. I just get the revolving door treatment, automated ticket responses. I'm thinking now I need to sit down and re-think my hosting provider, support used to be GREAT! Now it seems that it's taken a downward spiral. Could just be my experience, others may vary. Still on occassion get email returned to me, and others as well. Postini could be the cause of it all, might not be worth the hassle.

Can you PM me those automated ticket numbers so I can check into them for you?

If you have postini set to quarentine everything then the message should not bounce back at all and should be delivered directly to your server or quarentined. Once I have the ticket numbers I can take a look at some of your settings on possible causes for the bounce messages inbound. In the tickets that you sent in do you have a copy of the email rejections that the senders were getting?

For your outbound mail we can easily check into our logs and it should why in the bounce message that the message was not delivered. If you have the rejection notices in the tickets you sent in we can usually assist.

I'll be out of the office until Sunday, but with the ticket numbers I can call in and get some information sooner.