Since activating ipv6 on the server, GMAIL (and maybe others) reject emails from us

[Jari Elomaa]

I have tried to register as a new user to the forum twice already, but never got the activation email.
It's been over 30 hours from the first try and more than 12 hours from the last.

So if you're wondering why you are not getting any new forum users, maybe it's because the registering process does not work. ;)

Please fix the registering process so I can join the forum and post one suggestion I have.

[kaputtnik (franku)]

Thanks for your bug report and sorry for inconvenience.

I look into that.

[kaputtnik (franku)]

I have tested the registering process and all works fine IMHO.

Maybe the activation email was marked as spam and is stored in the spam folder? Did you looked into the spam folder?

[Jari Elomaa (interductus)]

Thanks for the fast response.

Yes, I have checked the spam folders. The first try was with a hotmail account and the second one with a gmail account.

I'm using Windows 10 and Chrome browser, if that has anything to do with anything.

I got your email that you can finish registering the user. This will solve it for me. Thanks.

[SirVer (sirver)]

Jari, thanks for going through the trouble of signing up to launchpad and reporting the issue.

GMAIL:
Kaputtnik, I think the issue is with our recent activation of ipV6 on the server. I found the following issue while looking through /var/log/exim4/mainlog*

2017-07-08 13:55:16 1dToKO-00042Y-Sb ** _EMAILADDR_ R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp: SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data: host gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com [2a00:1450:4013:c04::1a]: 550-5.7.1 [2a01:238:4326:5100:b5ce:5c0b:f1f4:2e40] Our system has detected that\n550-5.7.1 this message does not meet IPv6 sending guidelines regarding PTR\n550-5.7.1 records and authentication. Please review\n550-5.7.1 https://support.google.com/mail/?p=IPv6AuthError for more information\n550 5.7.1 . x13si5039368edd.171 - gsmtp

I removed jari's email address and replaced it through _EMAILADDR_.

HOTMAIL:
For hotmail, I found this (which is a known issue, Strato (our hoster) and hotmail do not like each other apparently).

2017-07-07 21:47:54 1dTZEG-0002Re-HX ** _EMAILADDR_ R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp: SMTP error from remote mail server after MAIL FROM:<email address hidden> SIZE=1955: host mx1.hotmail.com [65.55.92.168]: 550 SC-001 (SNT004-MC3F11) Unfortunately, messages from 85.214.243.231 weren't sent. Please contact your Internet service provider since part of their network is on our block list. You can also refer your provider to http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx#errors.

I think we cannot do much for the hotmail issue. But we should try to fix the gmail. I am not sure what is wrong though, I know nothing about ipv6. Maybe we can teach exim not to use ipv6?

Notabilis, can you help?

[Notabilis (notabilis27)]

I don't know exim (and not much about mails), but according to a quick search it is enough to add
  disable_ipv6=true
in /etc/exim/exim.conf and restart exim. This should stop the usage of IPv6 and "solve" the issue.

A better way would be to add a PTR and SPF record to our DNS. For the pointer record, it should work like this (in german):
https://www.strato.de/faq/article/1606/So-legen-Sie-ein-individuelles-DNS-Reverse-f%C3%BCr-Ihre-IP-Adressen-fest.html
Since we don't seem to have a special subdomain for sending mails, it should be fine when we enter widelands.org there. After doing so, Google should accept the mails but mark them as spam.

To fix this, it might be enough to follow
https://www.strato.de/faq/article/2328/Was-ist-der-TXT-Record-und-wie-kann-ich-ihn-verwenden.html
and add an SPF-record based on the MX entry. I (wildly) guess the "FAIL" option should be okay. As I understand the screenshot, selecting the option and leaving the edit boxes empty should be fine.
Hopefully, everything will be work as soon as the changes are propagated.

Maybe this would even improve the situation with hotmail, but I have no idea.

[kaputtnik (franku)]

Ah, now i know where to find the mail logs :-)

But i am unable to solve this network stuff... anyway thanks to Notabilis for the investigation :-)

[SirVer (sirver)]

Thanks Notabilis! I did [1] and tried to do [2], but unfortunately the documentation is either outdated or does not apply to our vserver product with strato. I sent them a support ticket - but from my experience that usually doesn't help much.

So in ~2hours when the reverse DNS is configured, GMAIL at least should start accepting our emails again. I will verify tomorrow by sending me an email from the server.

[1] https://www.strato.de/faq/article/1606/So-legen-Sie-ein-individuelles-DNS-Reverse-f%C3%BCr-Ihre-IP-Adressen-fest.html
[2] https://www.strato.de/faq/article/2328/Was-ist-der-TXT-Record-und-wie-kann-ich-ihn-verwenden.html

I just tried sending me an email to my gmail address from the server with '<email address hidden>' as sender and it worked. So I guess this works now.

Jari, if you can tell me your username on the website, I'd delete the user and you can try again with your gmail address? This would be helpful as confirmation that this bug is fixed. If you do not want to, I can also just activate your user and you can log in then.

[SirVer (sirver)]

As expected from Strato, at least they were super quick - and on a Sunday too.

---
Für Domains welche im Server Kundenlogin bestellt worden sind können leider keine TXT Records angelegt werden. Die Anleitung die Sie in der Hilfe gefunden haben bezieht sich auf die DNS Einstellungen in den STRATO Webhosting Paketen.

Da es im Kundenlogin nicht möglich ist TXT-Records für Domains anzulegen empfehle ich Ihnen Ihren EMail-Server ausgehend auf IPv4 zu beschränken oder die Domain in ein STRATO Domain Paket umzuziehen.
---

English: Can't add txt records for dns entries ordered for a vserver, only for something that is unrelated to a server packet. They suggest configuring outgoing email to only use ipv4 or to move DNS to outside the vserver (which seems non-free?).

I think we should also switch Exim to ipv4 only. Thoughts?

[kaputtnik (franku)]

I have activated Jari's account on widelands.org and he/she wrote already a first post in the forum. Jari can just try to add an additional account with use of the gmail address.

I have tested two e-mail providers and both have no problems with our current configuration.

As far as i understand it is possible to disable IPv6 only for gmail: https://askubuntu.com/questions/927056/disable-ipv6-in-exim4 ?

[GunChleoc (gunchleoc)]

Regarding the hotmail trouble, my e-mail provider had the same trouble due to misconfiguration of outlook.com's servers, so they changed their rules to accommodate out.ook.com. Maybe Strato would be willing to do the same?

[Jari Elomaa (interductus)]

I have now tried to create a yet another account just to test this and it worked!
I used the user name Testing-Testing-123 and immediately got the verification email.

Do I now just leave it unverified and let the registration expire or do you want me to go through the whole registration process and then delete the account?

I don't mind going through all these hoops :) I got bit by the Settlers bug and somehow came accross Widelands. It felt familiar enough, but with a lot of new twists to keep me interested. There's just some small(ish) improvements I'd like to have to make the gaming experience even better.

Secondly I work as a key user for many of the systems we use in our R&D department, so I'm used to writing incident tickets and bug reports in all kinds of systems the different vendors have. I just hope they would be as responsive, clear and open about the issues as you have been :)

[kaputtnik (franku)]

> Do I now just leave it unverified and let the registration
> expire or do you want me to go through the whole
> registration process and then delete the account?

Because the problem lies some where in the mail delivery, i think activation isn't needed. Otherwise it is not bad to have a response for the whole registration process (since we have a motivated user :-) ) We/i can delete the activated user in any case.

Thanks for your effort :-)

As i can see you have chosen your gmail address for the new user. I don't know if it is necessary to have a test with a hotmail address...

[Jari Elomaa (interductus)]

Activation worked. I successfully logged in to the forum with the test account.

Maybe the hotmail accounts are a thing of the past and can be ignored, but I think it's important to have the gmail acoounts working. I don't know how often you normally get new users to the forum, but maybe some have tried with a gmail address and gave up.

I'm glad I could help you with this issue and maybe you will get more active users now that the registration works. :)

[kaputtnik (franku)]

Thanks for the additional test :-)

> I used the user name Testing-Testing-123 and immediately got the verification email.

I have deleted this user account.

[GunChleoc (gunchleoc)]

Thanks a lot, Jari!