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~Tip Reresagenetsi
Aug 9, 2018, 7:03 AM
52 Posts

Emails delivered to Domino server even though MX record points elsewhere.

  • Category: Mail
  • Platform: Linux
  • Release: 9.0.1
  • Role:
  • Tags:
  • Replies: 1

Hi there,

We had multiple domains on our Domino server and one of the domains and its users moved to another email system.

The users’ mail systems have been set to “Other Internet Mail” in the notes address book and the Global Domain document has been deleted.

The users complained that they were receiving lots of spam and the admin informed me that it was originating from my Domino server.

I checked and indeed, emails were being received by my Domino server for these addresses and they were forwarded to their new email system.

See the log extract below (I replaced the domain in question by acme.com)

[13002:00066-3780593408] 07/08/2018 14:06:21   SMTP Server: 116.75.112.90 connected
[13002:00066-3775330048] 07/08/2018 14:06:22   SMTP Server: Message 003783DF (MessageID: <689749845.201808072004@acme.com>) received from 116.75.112.90 size 539 bytes
[13002:00066-3785856768] 07/08/2018 14:06:22   SMTP Server: 116.75.112.90 disconnected. 1 message[s] received
[12986:00032-680716032] 07/08/2018 14:06:27   Router: Message 003783DF transferred to mail.acme.com for user@acme.com from user@acme.com  Size: 1K via SMTP

Note that acme.com has a single MX record and does not point to my Domino server anymore, so the email should not be reaching my server.

Is there anything I can do about this?

Note that the users that are on my Domino server still correspond with users from acme.com.

My Domino server is also still being used as SMTP relay for various applications.

~Delores Opaverings
Aug 9, 2018, 8:47 PM
5 Posts
Spammers don't care about MX records
You'll need to protect the server to keep this from happening. Spammers don't need and don't use MX records. They just connect to SMTP servers directly once they know it will work.

You should consider locking things down in your configuration document under Router/SMTP \ Restrictions and Controls \ SMTP Inbound Controls.

At a minimum, you should restrict any SMTP relaying to only the IP addresses that need to and enable Verify connecting hostname in DNS as long as you don't have any legitimate traffic orignating from IP addresses without a PTR (hint: you really shouldn't). Those two adjustments should make the biggest dent into the problem with the least amount of effort.

You should also check the Router/SMTP \ Restrictions and Controls \ SMTP Outbound Controls to see if any of the settings there could help you.

This forum is closed to new posts and responses. Individual names altered for privacy purposes. The information contained in this website is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as a forum for customer support requests. Any customer support requests should be directed to the official HCL customer support channels below:

HCL Software Customer Support Portal for U.S. Federal Government clients
HCL Software Customer Support Portal