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by Avamander 448 days ago
They also started using new IPs without PTR records to send out mail. Though so has Microsoft just recently. Both heavily frown upon that when receiving mail themselves. Do as we say...
3 comments

I hate getting a report telling me my work domain is blocked because it is missing a PTR record and we use Exchange Online. I can’t do anything about that!
Sure you can. For instance, I don't use Exchange at all.
Yep, whenever I start a new job I say "Don't worry, because iamverysmart, you don't need any Microsoft products!" I am then hailed as a genius, everyone claps, and I get a big fat raise.
This sort of anti-progress sentiment doesn't belong here, I feel.
The snarky „just don’t use Exchange, duh!“ doesn’t either. It’s a non-solution that armchair experts provide, who aren’t responsible for managing mailing for lots of people.
There is no alternative to Exchange that does not involve Microsoft?
sure you can, take your business elsewhere
It’s a minor (but annoying) issue to make the reason to migrate 1,500 users. Who many of which would still need licenses for Excel anyway.

Microsoft being annoying and frustrating and having so many issues is why I have a well paying job in IT.

that sounds like the lump of labor fallacy. there's plenty of things to do in IT besides babysitting hypocrite hypergiants.
I hear you, but some people just want an easy high-paying job where they essentially work a few hours a week. Not everyone wants to fold proteins.
Because I get to make those calls, not people two or three or four levels above me.
Complain to your provider. You're paying for the service, right? They should run a properly configured mail exchange and part of that is having PTR records. If they can't manage that then it's time for a serious discussion about changing vendors.
You can set up a reflector on a properly set up host, and have your Exchange server use it to route the outgoing mail.
Be glad you receive a report. Apple just silently drops the email.
Not only does Apple frown upon that, they just silently drop emails that are sent from a server without PTR records. Yes, that includes their own servers. Yes, sending email from iCloud to iCloud is silently dropped if they decide you get assigned an outgoing server without PTR. The absolute amateurism just blows my mind.
It's incredibly entitled of some big cloud based operator to send mail from an SMTP source that doesn't have proper reverse DNS. Any normal independent small operator sending mail without proper reverse DNS will increase its likelihood of spam rank by a thousand percent. Or get flat out rejected at the SMTP negotiation process or relay attempt.

But things like icloud, office365, google workspace and similar are "too big to fail", right? They don't have to play by the same rules as the rest of us peons.

as referenced here, from the post on the 'mailop' mailing list

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43512353

This is either an astonishing level of technical fuck-up from what has to be an entire work group of people with six figure salaries whose jobs are nothing but running email server infrastructure, so they must clearly know better, or a lack of regard for the internet community and accepted standards. I really cannot think of a third possible explanation for it.

To be clear for those people who don't run their own email servers: Having proper reverse DNS for the IP of your outbound SMTP sending server is one of the absolute bare minimum requirements for accepted mail flow, and is a standard that's probably 25 years old or older now. It significantly pre-dates SPF, DKIM, DMARC and all the rest. Proper RDNS is literally one of the first things you verify before you set up everything else.