Monthly Archives: May 2011

Tag and Deliver Suspect Spam – Spam and Virus Protection with Emergency Mail

If you are a current client of MxToolBox and are utilizing our Spam and Virus Protection with Emergency Mail with Tag and Deliver (TAD) class of service, this means that we will not Quarantine SPAM messages for you, but will allow that mail to come through. With this option we are modifying the email header with a Spam Flag, that way you can move all of these messages to a specified folder using the rule below.

To move SPAM tagged mail (TAD) to a specified folder:

  1. Click on Tools -> Rules and Alerts
  2. Click on New Rule..
  3. Start from a blank rule, Check messages when they arrive, Next
  4. Check “with specific words in the senders address”, then click on “specific words” in the bottom window
  5. Put this entry: Header Named: X-Spam-Flag value = “suspect” and Click Add6) Click OK7) Click Next8) Check “move it to the specified folder”, click on “specified” in the bottom window
  6. Next and Next again
  7. Type a name for your rule, we recommend “Tagged SPAM”
  8. Finish

Typically our Spam and Virus Protection with Emergency Mail is a Tag and Quarantine service which means that we Quarantine any suspect spam and place it in your Emergency Mailbox. Customers have the ability to select Tag and Deliver so that the Junk Mail goes directly to their local Email Client and then this rule moves the mail to a designated folder.

May Newsletter: Pitfalls of DNS & ISP-Hosted Free Email


MxToolBox May Newsletter

MxToolbox receives hundreds of inquiries on a weekly basis from companies who are suffering from outbound email delivery problems resulting from blacklists.  A large number of these companies are using “free-mail” (free email) provided by their Internet Service Provider (ISP) or Domain Host.

Imagine these scenarios: “My email just does not seem to work – I have constant problems.  Every time I try sending messages to Yahoo & Gmail, they bounce-back and my provider doesn’t seem to want to help.  I downloaded the email to my phone and now I can’t see it on my PC.  I can’t get to my contacts or my calendars from anywhere but my Outlook!  I called my ISP and they said to call my host. I called my host and they said to call my ISP!  I called them both back and they said go to MxToolBox and see if your IP Address is Blacklisted.”  Does this all sound familiar?  If it does, we have great news for you — You have finally gotten to the right people!

Why do ISPs refer these customers to us?

1) MxToolBox.com is an online resource of Free Troubleshooting SuperTools as well as professional business class Email and Web Security services. Our tools and services are built and run by e-mail experts and we have been monitoring Blacklists since our inception.

2) We offer free advice to better understand the blacklists and make recommendations.

3)  We offer Long-Term, Permanent Solutions!  MxToolBox can provide you with business class Email Hosting with Enterprise Class Email Security including anti-spam, anti-virus and phishing protection along with pro-active, outbound blacklist management so you don’t experience mail rejection.  No one else is addressing the true problem.

Let’s look a little deeper in to the problem.

Many hosting providers, such as DNS Registrars / Web Hosts and ISP’s, provide the most basic email infrastructure with minimal security and only POP connections for inbound and unmonitored shared SMTP for outbound.  For many small businesses who run offices either at home or in office spaces with DSL or Cable Modem connections from their ISP, it is very common to have email rejected by the hosted email server or even by the end-recipients as a result of their local Internet connection/IP Address being blacklisted.

Some blacklist databases are actually configured to report any Dynamic IP like those handed out by ISPs.  Additionally, given that most free email providers are hosting email for anyone who wants a domain and are often providing “unlimited” email accounts, they are not concerned with what type of email is sent from those servers and are not monitoring outbound traffic to ensure that their reputation is clean. What that means for you: If you’re in that shared environment and your neighbor sends out spam, you and everyone else in the shared environment are blacklisted and you are guilty by association.  Even worse, there is nothing you can do about it.  Remember, you aren’t paying for email or email support for your free-mail, so the provider does not have budget allocated for email support.

MxToolbox Hosted Mail:

Inbound Email via MxToolBox:
MxToolBox provides premium anti-spam and anti-virus protection as well as a rock-solid hardware infrastructure to protect your inbound mail and ensure that only good, clean, spam free emails hit your inbox and that it is extremely secure.  We provide the capability for both POP connections to grab your email from our servers and download to your PC; and/or the preferred method of today, IMAP , which allows you webmail access from anywhere in the World, as well as the ability to access mail from your local software client (i.e. Outlook, Thunderbird) or your mobile smartphone and always see the same information no matter where you login to your email!

Outbound Email via MxToolBox:
We provide very strong and secure connections for outbound mail via SSL or TLS to ensure reliable and secure email delivery and minimize the problems that are experienced.  Additionally, we have 24/7 monitoring of our outbound email traffic to be certain that no one is sending Spam or bulk mail through our Email servers — and as such, we have the most stellar reputation in the email business for outbound delivery. Put simply – if your email is sent via MxToolBox, it will get delivered, period!  You won’t be subject to mail bouncing due to blacklists, whether it’s at the the DNS Provider or your local ISP-provided IP Address; our concern isn’t the blacklist. We just want your email to work and it will always work with our robust business class Email Hosting Solutions . Additionally, if you want to send reliable newsletters and/or marketing updates to your clients (like we do), we can make recommendations for outstanding Email Marketing Providers who make it easy for you to create professional sign up form for your website, build your email list and stay in touch with prospects.

Please visit our Forums, our Blog, our Website or follow us on Twitter and Facebook to learn more about what MxToolBox can do for your business and what amazing things are happening in the world of email Today!

April Newsletter:  Cloud Based Web Security Mitigates Anti Virus Vulnerabilities

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‘4.3.1 Insufficient system resources’ – Back Pressure Feature Exchange 2007

Bounce backs and error codes for email can be very mysterious and misleading. To help with that we have started a new series on the blog dedicated to demystifying these mysteries. To read all of the blogs in this series, go here.

We see this type of error pretty often here at MxToolbox and so we wanted to post about it here. Customers Exchange servers can mistakenly react to normal mail flow and cause a disruption in service. The error that is posed is ‘4.3.1 Insufficient system resources’.

A feature called Back Pressure in Exchange 2007 can sometimes cause this error to be received when we try to deliver messages to the customer server. When Back Pressure detects overused resources the Exchange Server controls system resources to prevent them from being overwhelmed and it allows the delivery process for current messages to be worked out. All these processes are part of the Back Pressure feature which is responsible for monitoring certain Exchange Server 2007 resources.

The drive on which the Queue DB and logs are stored must have 4GB or more free space otherwise the server will apply back pressure and start slowing the flow of messages! The main database file is called mail.que and by default can be found here:

C:Program FilesMicrosoftExchange ServerTransportRolesdataQueue

Other helpful articles:
http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2007/management-administration/understanding-back-pressure-feature-exchange-server-2007.html
http://exchangepedia.com/blog/2007/03/exchange-server-2007-transport-452-431.html

How to Read Email Bounce Backs and Errors

Bounce backs and error codes for email can be very mysterious and misleading. To help with that we have started a new series on the blog dedicated to demystifying these occurrences. To read all of the blogs in this series, go here.

To kick off our series on demystifying and understanding email bounce backs and errors, we thought it would benefit everyone to go over how to read a bounce back. Some bounce backs are very cryptic and full of codes and numbers. How are you supposed to figure it out? Let’s break down a typical bounce back:

  1. The top part of this message is the actual bounce back. This is the “meat” of what you need to identify.  Sometimes bounces include lots of numbers and codes; ignore all that and find the string that references the 400 or 500 number.  (What’s the difference between a 400 and a 500 error?).  In this case the error is ‘550 No such user’. Since this account doesn’t exist at mxtoolbox.com the message was bounced by the recipient server.
  2. The second half of the bounce is the email headers. Keep in mind that not all bounce backs include this information, however, most do. This information is really helpful as it contains the Sender, Recipient, Date, Time and Subject, as well as server hops. If you are unable to figure out the issue, make sure you send the complete bounce back including the email headers to your IT administrator.  All of this information is critical in understanding a bounce back. If you need help reading headers, try our free tool, the Header Analyzer. It makes the email header a bit easier to read.

Microsoft Exchange
As with all things Exchange, they have their own way of doing things. Exchange bounces include a top header section; however, we tend to ignore that section as it has very little helpful information.  Remember to focus on the “Technical details” or the “Diagnostic Information for administrators;” as this is the “meat” of the data you need to analyze.   You may also notice that Exchange bounces include two conflicting “who rejected your message” statements. The second one labeled “Generating Server” is generally the server that issued the bounce.

Remember that knowledge is power!  We at MxToolBox are constantly educating ourselves about all the different bounce backs that exist.  Also keep in mind that with some Vendors and ISPs you have the ability to create custom bounce back errors…so you always have to be on your toes!

If this is a bit overwhelming or you don’t want to mess with understanding bounce backs or error codes, don’t worry.  It can take years of experience to feel comfortable reading and deciphering this information. We understand that you just want your email to work!  Implementing one of our Managed Business Email Products such as Spam and Virus Filtering or Hosted Email can help alleviate these issues and put someone in your back pocket to help understand when these problems occur.