Mailing List Archive

proper helo config
I have a server which acts as the company outgoing mail server for bulk
info (mail.mx.mydomain.com). We have another server
(server1.mydomain.com) which is used to gather database info and send
mail, using a simple perl program, then connects and uses the
mail.mx.mydomain.com for delivery. And we have our global company mail
server that our employees use for all the company mail (mail.mydomain.com).
For sending our newsletters, promotions, etc, we use
server1.mydomain.com to gather our client info, then it connects to
mail.mx.mydomain.com and sends the mail. In the headers that we
obviously control, what should the "helo" be set to? Should it be
server1.mydomain.com or mail.mx.mydomain.com or can we use
mail.mydomain.com?
Here's what we currently have it set to, not sure if this is correct or
if we should change to something different to be fully compliant:

Received: from server1.mydomain.com (HELO mail.mydomain.com) (a.b.c.d)
by mail.mx.mydomain.com with SMTP; 1 Dec 2013 15:01:37 -0000


And which fqdn should a.b.c.d match? The Helo or server1?

Any help would be appreciated, Thanks.
K
Re: proper helo config [ In reply to ]
Thus said Kirk Rogers on Fri, 13 Dec 2013 09:48:12 -0800:

> In the headers that we obviously control, what should the "helo" be
> set to? Should it be server1.mydomain.com or mail.mx.mydomain.com or
> can we use mail.mydomain.com?

According to RFC 1123:

5.2.5 HELO Command: RFC-821 Section 3.5

The sender-SMTP MUST ensure that the <domain> parameter in
a HELO command is a valid principal host domain name for
the client host. As a result, the receiver-SMTP will not
have to perform MX resolution on this name in order to
validate the HELO parameter.

Based on this, it seems like you should be using whatever the hostname
of your MX is.

Andy
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