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>If you run your own email server and you get put onto Google's spam list - you're fucked. It's even worse than that- I ran my own email server, and for some r

by tedivm 3y ago

>If you run your own email server and you get put onto Google's spam list - you're fucked. It's even worse than that- I ran my own email server, and for some reason gmail delayed any emails from their system to outside of their system. That meant that people would send me an email but I wouldn't get it for 20 minutes. These delays don't exist when using big email providers (it stopped being a problem when I switched to Fastmail, for example) but if you're running a small server Google makes it a nightmare.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
I have run my own email server off a Linode for the last decade-plus, and I have never encountered this. Most of the people with whom I correspond (I run my own business from my server) are on Gmail, and I have always received their emails instantly. If you were getting emails only 20 minutes later, I wonder if there was some server misconfiguration on your end, e.g. sending messages into graylisting delays.
dataflow 3y ago
I assume you didn't have anything in between Gmail and your setup? Like a forwarding layer or something?
jethro_tell 3y ago
Sounds like you need to allowlist google from your grey list. They have a long retry on their side. Once you tell a server to 'go away, come back later' it is really up to the server to decide when or if to retry. Additionally, If they use multiple sending IPs, you can end up grey listing again and again before they try back with a good ip. You'd either need to allowlist the big providers sending blocks or just drop grey listing all together.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  My gray list behaves like this. It's seldom a problem in practice, but new senders may need a "warm-up".
- tedivm 3y ago
  I completely disabled greylisting to try and resolve that, but it is another good point on why gmail kind of sucks for people not on gmail.
  - jethro_tell 3y ago
    So you accepted their mail on first contact? And first contact was 20 min after sent header timestamp?

by tedivm 3y ago

OfSanguineFire 3y ago

I have run my own email server off a Linode for the last decade-plus, and I have never encountered this. Most of the people with whom I correspond (I run my own business from my server) are on Gmail, and I have always received their emails instantly. If you were getting emails only 20 minutes later, I wonder if there was some server misconfiguration on your end, e.g. sending messages into graylisting delays.

dataflow 3y ago

I assume you didn't have anything in between Gmail and your setup? Like a forwarding layer or something?

jethro_tell 3y ago

Sounds like you need to allowlist google from your grey list. They have a long retry on their side. Once you tell a server to 'go away, come back later' it is really up to the server to decide when or if to retry. Additionally, If they use multiple sending IPs, you can end up grey listing again and again before they try back with a good ip. You'd either need to allowlist the big providers sending blocks or just drop grey listing all together.

actionfromafar 3y ago
My gray list behaves like this. It's seldom a problem in practice, but new senders may need a "warm-up".
tedivm 3y ago
I completely disabled greylisting to try and resolve that, but it is another good point on why gmail kind of sucks for people not on gmail.
- jethro_tell 3y ago
  So you accepted their mail on first contact? And first contact was 20 min after sent header timestamp?