I use Gmail. Years ago I switched my personal email server from an IMAP server that I'd hit with Thunderbird, over to an "alias all incoming mail to various Gmail accounts" server. It has annoyed me to no end, however, that when I sent emails as <a href="mailto:richard@bronosky.com">richard@bronosky.com</a>, the headers would indicate that the email came from Gmail on behalf of my domain address.<br>
<br>Gmail recently added the option to have outgoing email delivered via your preferred SMTP server. Might I add that this is awesome, generous (considering all the extra load of connecting out and authenticating against your closed relay), and selfless (no other free service offers this). When I made the switch, my emails to ALE started bouncing. First of all I found that I suffered from <a href="http://status.slicehost.com/2009/11/11/email-issues-spamhaus-pbl">http://status.slicehost.com/2009/11/11/email-issues-spamhaus-pbl</a> and had to get my IP off of the Spamhaus PBL. But then I still couldn't email ALE and I also couldn't get password reminders sent to me, or subscribe new @<a href="http://bronosky.com">bronosky.com</a> aliases via <a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale</a><br>
<br>As it would turn out, I made some choices with my DNS that didn't offend Google, Yahoo!, Comcast, or AT&T. (They would all deliver to and accept mail from me.) ALE/Mailman on the other hand would not do either.<br>
<br>My DNS looked like this:<br><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><a href="http://bronosky.com">bronosky.com</a>. IN CNAME </span><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"> <a href="http://bronosky.com">bronosky.com</a>.</span><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
<span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">mail IN CNAME </span><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"> <a href="http://bronosky.com">bronosky.com</a>.</span><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
<span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">slice1 IN A 174.143.204.116</span><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><a href="http://bronosky.com">bronosky.com</a>. IN MX 0 <a href="http://slice1.bronosky.com">slice1.bronosky.com</a>.</span><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
<span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><a href="http://bronosky.com">bronosky.com</a>.</span><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"> IN MX 0</span><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"> <a href="http://bronosky.com">bronosky.com</a>.</span><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
<span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><a href="http://bronosky.com">bronosky.com</a>.</span><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"> IN MX 0</span><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"> <a href="http://mail.bronosky.com">mail.bronosky.com</a>.</span><br>
<br>Mailman kept reporting my email as coming from <a href="mailto:richard@slice1.bronosky.com">richard@slice1.bronosky.com</a>, so it wouldn't accept it since that address wasn't subscribed. What was even more odd is that when I would request a password reminder from <a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale</a> my mail log would register bounces due to the destination address being the same as above, even though this address I am now sending from was the one subscribed and the one I entered in the form. WEIRD!<br>
<br>Turns out that not only is it not advisable to use a cnamed hostname for an MX record, but Mailman was pretending that they didn't exist. It was as if the <a href="http://slice1.bronosky.com">slice1.bronosky.com</a> MX record was the only record in my DNS. When I made the following change, all was right in the world.<br>
<br><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><a href="http://bronosky.com">bronosky.com</a>. IN A 174.143.204.116</span><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">mail IN A 174.143.204.116</span><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
<span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">slice1 IN A 174.143.204.116</span><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><a href="http://bronosky.com">bronosky.com</a>. IN MX 0 <a href="http://slice1.bronosky.com">slice1.bronosky.com</a>.</span><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
<span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><a href="http://bronosky.com">bronosky.com</a>.</span><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"> IN MX 0</span><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"> <a href="http://bronosky.com">bronosky.com</a>.</span><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
<span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><a href="http://bronosky.com">bronosky.com</a>.</span><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"> IN MX 0</span><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"> <a href="http://mail.bronosky.com">mail.bronosky.com</a>.</span><br>
<br>I'd like to send a big thank you to Jim Kinney for his patient assistance, emails, watching the logs for me at least three different times, and even chatting with me over GoogleTalk. I couldn't have done it without him.<br>
<br>-- <br>.!# RichardBronosky #!.<br><br>