Email Issues: Spamhaus PBL

November 11th, 2009 @ 11:00 AM

UPDATE Sat, Nov 14: We are receiving reports that many customers, who previously had their slice's IP address successfully removed from the Spamaus PBL, may be experiencing further issues. It appears Spamhaus has re-listed several blocks of our IP addresses on their Policy Block List.

At this time, we are unaware of the reasoning behind the re-listing of these IP addresses and have contacted Spamhaus regarding this issue.

The steps outlined in our initial status post should allow the majority of our customers to remove their slice IP from the Spamhaus PBL. However, it has come to our attention that Spamhaus is not accepting automated removal requests for some of our IP addresses.

We have sent a request to Spamhaus to allow automated removal requests for all of our IP addresses and this should be completed shortly.

Once again, please accept our sincere apologies for this issue and any problems it may have caused.

This morning we experienced an issue where several large blocks of our IP addresses were placed on the Spamhaus Block List (SBL).

We contacted Spamhaus immediately and as a result, the IP addresses in question were removed from the SBL.

As part of the resolution, Spamhaus has placed all Slicehost IP addresses on their Policy Block List (PBL)

You can request removal of your individual slice IP, by performing a lookup of your slice IP address on the page provided and then clicking the link present under the PBL listing. On the page that appears, you will see a 'Remove an IP from PBL' button.

We apologize for this inconvenience and can assure you that we are taking every step necessary to ensure that this matter does not occur in the future.

If there is anything further we can assist you with, please stop by SliceChat or email us at support@slicehost.com.

Posted by mark

Comments:

Vitaliy commented on Wed Nov 11 11:35:45 UTC 2009:

OK, PBL says that my IP is not in their lists but all mail from my host are trapped into GMail spambox today.. Is it going to be resolved automatically (with Gmail)?

kerri miller commented on Wed Nov 11 12:44:20 UTC 2009:

I love the effort you guys make at communicating these sorts of things to us.

Mark commented on Wed Nov 11 12:56:00 UTC 2009:

Vitaliy,

Unfortunately, we don’t have control of what Gmail decides to place in their Spambox. You may want to contact Gmail regarding the issue to ensure you are complying with all of their requirements.

Joe commented on Wed Nov 11 14:39:58 UTC 2009:

I just checked my IP on the PBL page, and Spamhaus says it’s not on any of their lists.

Know if that means it’s likely to stay that way, or is this something I should be re-checking sometime in the future?

Appreciate the notice.

Dave commented on Wed Nov 11 16:48:02 UTC 2009:

We are now on the MSN/HOTMAIL/LIVE blocklist per the SBL. Any idea how quickly they refresh? Getting off the Microsoft list is usually painful. Any ideas?

Mark commented on Wed Nov 11 16:49:16 UTC 2009:

Joe,

If your slice IP address is not listed on the Spamhaus PBL, then there is nothing further you should be concerned about at this time in regards to this notice.

Mark commented on Wed Nov 11 16:58:19 UTC 2009:

Dave,

I’m not sure of the refresh time for the block list mentioned.

With that said, have you requested removal of your slice’s IP address from the PBL using the instructions above?

Dave commented on Wed Nov 11 18:05:16 UTC 2009:

Our IP is not on any of the SpamHous lists – I guess it cleared itself. But Microsoft thinks it is. My clients have been without emails to hotmail/msn all day. I’m hoping Microsoft will refresh it’s cached data soon.

Matthew commented on Wed Nov 11 18:19:36 UTC 2009:

Dave, this is a great link for handling MS spam marking: http://forum.slicehost.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=773#Item_11

Ariel commented on Wed Nov 11 23:29:29 UTC 2009:

I don’t get it. My slice ip is listed in the PBL. Currently I’m not sending mails from it, but i will in the near future. Should I request removal or not?

Kit commented on Thu Nov 12 05:09:58 UTC 2009:

I bought a slice for less than a month and this happened twice already.

aslan commented on Thu Nov 12 08:45:23 UTC 2009:

I came here as none of my e-mails were coming through and found this page immediately.

Just wanted to say thanks to the slicehost team for letting us know how to deal with this so quickly – many would leave us to fend for ourselves.

I have removed my IP from the blacklist and e-mails are now flowing beautifully! Cheers!

Steve commented on Thu Nov 12 09:59:56 UTC 2009:

Found this during the process of removing my IP from the Spamhaus PBL:

“Outbound Email Policy of Rackspace US, Inc. for this IP range:

It is the policy of rackspace that unauthenticated email sent from this IP address should be sent out only via the designated outbound mail server allocated to rackspace customers. To find the hostname of the correct mail server to use, customers should consult the original signup documentation or contact rackspace Technical Support.”

Is this REALLY the policy of Rackspace/Slicehost? I was under the impression that we never need to use a smarthost.

Spamhaus has done something like this before to me (not related to Slicehost). It seems very unfair for them to go ahead and block such a big range of IPs without really doing investigation and really affect people’s businesses for a day!

I know Rackspace/SliceHost has little control over what Spamhaus decides to do. Anyway, I’m still very annoyed that this happened. My mail is still getting trapped in Gmail spam! Who knows when Microsoft and Google will refresh!