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From: Mark Krenz on 25 Jun 2010 11:06

Hi, this is more of a policy type of question, but I'm not sure who
else to ask right now.

We are a small webhosting/email hosting provider. We offer our
clients authenticated SMTP relaying. One of our clients is complaining
because we don't strip out the first Received header line that shows
what their company IP address is when they send from say their Outlook
client. They are claiming that as a proper hosting provider, we
shouldn't be keeping that line in. They also think that because we leave
that in that they are having their IP put on blacklists.

So I'm wondering if that's true, have modern email relay server
practices changed for some reason? Am I going to run into issues
leaving it in?

I looked around last night and found some pages talking about how to
strip that line out, but I couldn't find any pages recommending that
this is the preferred practice now or something.


--
Mark Krenz
IT Director
Suso Technology Services, Inc.

From: Matt Hayes on 25 Jun 2010 11:12
On 6/25/2010 11:06 AM, Mark Krenz wrote:
>
> Hi, this is more of a policy type of question, but I'm not sure who
> else to ask right now.
>
> We are a small webhosting/email hosting provider. We offer our
> clients authenticated SMTP relaying. One of our clients is complaining
> because we don't strip out the first Received header line that shows
> what their company IP address is when they send from say their Outlook
> client. They are claiming that as a proper hosting provider, we
> shouldn't be keeping that line in. They also think that because we leave
> that in that they are having their IP put on blacklists.
>
> So I'm wondering if that's true, have modern email relay server
> practices changed for some reason? Am I going to run into issues
> leaving it in?
>
> I looked around last night and found some pages talking about how to
> strip that line out, but I couldn't find any pages recommending that
> this is the preferred practice now or something.
>
>

Mark,

As far as I know, there's no need to strip it out. My personal server
doesn't, my work email server doesn't, etc.

Sounds to me like someone is blowing smoke, but I'll let far more
experienced folks chime in before I make too many judgement calls!

-Matt

From: Noel Jones on 25 Jun 2010 11:28
On 6/25/2010 10:06 AM, Mark Krenz wrote:
>
> Hi, this is more of a policy type of question, but I'm not sure who
> else to ask right now.
>
> We are a small webhosting/email hosting provider. We offer our
> clients authenticated SMTP relaying. One of our clients is complaining
> because we don't strip out the first Received header line that shows
> what their company IP address is when they send from say their Outlook
> client. They are claiming that as a proper hosting provider, we
> shouldn't be keeping that line in. They also think that because we leave
> that in that they are having their IP put on blacklists.
>
> So I'm wondering if that's true, have modern email relay server
> practices changed for some reason? Am I going to run into issues
> leaving it in?
>
> I looked around last night and found some pages talking about how to
> strip that line out, but I couldn't find any pages recommending that
> this is the preferred practice now or something.
>
>

No, it is not common practice to strip out Received: headers,
and is not recommended.

Some misconfigured spam filters check ALL received headers
against RBLs, causing false rejects. If your customer
frequently communicates with such a host, you may need to a)
contact the postmaster at the recipient domain and explain
their error and when that doesn't work you may need to b)
remove or rewrite the header somehow -- examples are in the
list archives.

Also note that some spam filters will add points for messages
with no prior Received: headers, so sometimes you can't win
either way.

-- Noel Jones

From: Mark Krenz on 25 Jun 2010 12:29
On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 03:28:14PM GMT, Noel Jones [njones(a)megan.vbhcs.org] said the following:
>
> Some misconfigured spam filters check ALL received headers
> against RBLs, causing false rejects. If your customer
> frequently communicates with such a host, you may need to a)
> contact the postmaster at the recipient domain and explain
> their error and when that doesn't work you may need to b)
> remove or rewrite the header somehow -- examples are in the
> list archives.

I've been suspecting this is the case as well. Its good to get another
opinion on this.

> Also note that some spam filters will add points for messages
> with no prior Received: headers, so sometimes you can't win
> either way.

How would they know if they didn't have a Received header for the
client IP? Or do you mean if all prior Received headers were removed,
including the relay?


--
Mark Krenz
IT Director
Suso Technology Services, Inc.

From: Simon Waters on 25 Jun 2010 12:46
On Friday 25 June 2010 16:06:26 Mark Krenz wrote:
>
> They also think that because we leave
> that in that they are having their IP put on blacklists.

Ask for the bounced emails or other evidence for why they believe this.

I've seen all sorts of misunderstanding from people looking at such things, so
simply ask for the evidence including headers for anything to do with spam.

Simon

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