Is someone using bounce.io already?

Question asked by Webio - 9/10/2014 at 12:42 AM

Unanswered

Hello,

latest SmarterMail version has bounce.io integration and there is also help article about it:

https://portal.smartertools.com/kb/a2951/enable-bounce_io-integration.aspx

but I'm wondering do we need also to add another MX record to DNS zone? Here and there (http://www.thewhir.com/blog/qa-monetizing-mx-records-sean-stafford-bounce-io) can be found information that we need to add MX record and I'm wondering if this is needed when using SmarterMail integration. I've enabled this solution for a test and I'm wondering on what situation it works and on what it is not. In stats I see that there are some bounces handled by bounce.io but I've made few tests where I've sent from my SmarterMail server to non existing gmail account and from my existing gmail account to non existing mailbox on mail domain handled by my SmarterMail server and none of them where handled by bounce.io. IMHO message send from gmail to non existing email account on my server should be handled by bounce.io but maybe I'm missing something.

Regards

EDIT: Small configuration info. I'm using main SmarterMail server with three SmarterMail gateways. All of them are configured with bounce.io and their IP addresses are present in bounce.io IP address section.

19 Replies

Reply to Thread

Webio Replied

9/10/2014 at 1:22 AM

I've made another test and I think I've found some issue on bounce.io side. I've sent email to non existing email address (.....@ggggmai.com) and I've received text bounce which has landed in my SPAM folder at the beggining I thought that this bounce was generated by my SmaterMail gateway since it contained only clean text message but it has a little different text font but other than that it was clean text. But when I've checked message header here is what I've found:

Return-Path: <<"system>
Received: from GATEWAYSERVER1 (GATEWAYSERVER1 [GATEWAYSERVERIP1]) by MAINSMARTERMAILSERVER with SMTP
(version=TLS\Tls
cipher=Aes256 bits=256);
Wed, 10 Sep 2014 10:05:40 +0200
Received: from mx14.bounceio.net (mx14.bounceio.net [192.237.151.14]) by GATEWAYSERVER1 with SMTP;
Wed, 10 Sep 2014 10:05:30 +0200
Received: by mx14.bounceio.net id h2034m0rhk4o for <MYEMAILADDRESS>; Wed, 10 Sep 2014 08:05:30 +0000 (envelope-from <"System Administrator"@521160-app1.bounceio.net>)
Authentication-Results: bounceio.com; ;
Received: from MAINSMARTERMAILSERVER (MAINSMARTERMAILSERVER [MAINSMARTERMAILSERVERIP])
by bounceio.com (Haraka/2.5.0) with ESMTPS id EBB1F9B7-7C32-4B72-B089-ED6BA10F6445.1
envelope-from <>
(version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=AES256-SHA verify=FAIL);
Wed, 10 Sep 2014 08:05:29 +0000
Received: from GATEWAYSERVER2 (GATEWAYSERVER2 [GATEWAYSERVERIP2]) by MAINSMARTERMAILSERVER with SMTP
(version=TLS\Tls
cipher=Aes256 bits=256);
Wed, 10 Sep 2014 10:05:04 +0200
Message-ID: <411507209.888611410336329713.JavaMail.tomcat@50.57.34.198>
From: <"System Administrator">
To: MYEMAILADDRESS
Subject: Delivery Failure
X-SmarterMail-MessageType: Bounce
X-SmarterMail-SmartHostSpam: SPF_Fail, DK_None, DKIM_None, Custom Rules [], Declude: 9
X-SmarterMail-SmartHostSpamWeight: 39
X-SmarterMail-SmartHostSpamSalt: 1028072989
X-SmarterMail-SmartHostSpamKey: -1222394820
X-BounceIO-Id: EBB1F9B7-7C32-4B72-B089-ED6BA10F6445.1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
MIME-Version: 1.0
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 08:05:31 +0000
X-Declude-Sender: <"system [192.237.151.14]
X-Declude-Spoolname: -1328448996310.eml
X-Declude-RefID:
X-Declude-Note: Scanned by Declude 4.12.03 "http://www.declude.com/x-note.htm"
X-Declude-Scan: Outgoing Score [9] at 10:05:37 on 10 Sep 2014
X-Declude-Tests: BADHEADERS [8], SPFPASS [-1], FROMNOMATCH [2]
X-Country-Chain: POLAND->destination
X-Declude-Code: 8004000f
X-HELO: mx14.bounceio.net
X-Identity: 192.237.151.14 | mx14.bounceio.net | klisza.com
X-SmarterMail-Spam: Bayesian Filtering, Custom Rules []
X-SmarterMail-TotalSpamWeight: 39

As you can see message was sent by bounce.io but something is wrong with this message. There is no nice error message and it contains some bad header entries. Now when I'm checking my incoming/outgoing SmarterMail gateways I see some spool messages where Sender is:

<"system

which is the same as my bounce mesage header entry:

Return-Path: <<"system>

All of this messages are far from being friendly.

I've provided this ST community post entry URL in bounce.io contact form so I hope someone from them will check this. Or maybe this is ST issue?

Regards

Andrew Replied

9/10/2014 at 12:32 PM

Firstly, thanks for signing up with bounce.io!

bounce.io has two solutions:

a) mailbox provider solution, such as yourself, whereby: when your SM users send an email a non-existent user or domain (or have other mail delivery problems), your server generates a bounce which forwards that bounce notice only (not message body) to our server, which enhances the bounce and sends it back to your user.

b) domain owners, where people or companies who own (usually thousands of) domains can point their MX records directly at our MTA servers, and we process every piece of email and bounce them all back (as non-existent user). (i.e. these domains are never handling 'real' mail or hosting mailboxes). The article you read at TheWhir, by Sean Staffard, is about this 'domain owner' product.

That should help answer most of your questions. So, for the SmarterMail integration you do not need an MX record in your DNS zone. Also, an email from your gmail account to a non-existent user on your SmarterMail server, will not produce an enhanced bounce.io bounce, because it was google that was authoring that bounce for your gmail account. Our mailbox provider solution (a) enhances bounces for bounces that are authored by your SM server.

In regards to the bounce that you did receive, that ended up in your SPAM folder. I'll do some more investigation on this topic, and answer that question soon.

Regards, Andrew.

Employee Replied

9/10/2014 at 1:11 PM

Employee Post

Regarding your issue where the message went to your spam folder, do you have your incoming gateway IP address(es) listed on your primary server under the "Bypass Gateways" tab on your "Security -> Antispam Administration" page?

The bounce.io IP addresses are automatically whitelisted when bounce.io is enabled. However, you need to have your incoming gateway IP addresses listed in the "Bypass Gateways" tab on your primary server for that whitelisting to work. Otherwise your primary SmarterMail server will think the message is getting sent from your incoming gateway IP address instead of the bounce.io IP address.

If you do have your incoming gateway IP address(es) bypassed correctly, then I will do some testing of the incoming gateway scenario to see if I can reproduce what you are seeing.

As for the non-formatted bounce message, if bounce.io doesn't understand how to parse a SmarterMail bounce message it will send it back in it's original form. We have some bounce messages where either we will need to format them in a way bounce.io understands or bounce.io will need to update their parsing to handle our formatting. We will work with them on that as we encounter unformatted bounces, so that will get better with time. From my testing the messages bounced with an SMTP response were all handled correctly, but there are some other cases we will have to work on together.

Webio Replied

9/10/2014 at 10:32 PM

Hello,

I have incoming/outgoing gateways added to antispam security but issue here is that bounce messages sent from bounce.io are being sent by external source so this doesn't matter if I have whitelisted my gateways. Bounce message for my mail servers are just another message sent to them and since it contains header errors declude is giving some points:

X-Declude-Tests: BADHEADERS [8], SPFPASS [-1], FROMNOMATCH [2]

and main smartermail instance is adding some points from Bayesian filtering:

X-SmarterMail-Spam: Bayesian Filtering, Custom Rules []
X-SmarterMail-TotalSpamWeight: 39

Maybe this is related to having empty "Postmaster Mailbox" field in general configuration on my SM servers?

Steve Reid Replied

9/11/2014 at 7:01 AM

Does this take a while to start working? I configured it all and sent a test yet it looks no different than normal.

My domains are showing on bounce.io

Steve Reid Replied

9/11/2014 at 7:07 AM

My IP addresses are not auto populating

Steve Reid Replied

9/11/2014 at 8:30 AM

I added the IPs manually and then never received the bounces.

Steve Reid Replied

9/11/2014 at 8:42 AM

Needed to manually add ips to smtp authentication bypass. Something with the IPs clearly did not work or populate for me.

Steve Reid Replied

9/11/2014 at 8:49 AM

Is bounce.io the same thing as betterbounces.net?

The bounce mail itself still leaves a lot to be desired. For example the "Prefer no ads?" link does nothing.

The ad makes the explanation text crammed together and harder to read.

I did not define links to support, terms or privacy yet the links show in the email and actually go nowhere.

The find out more and rate this email links look very sketchy and not something safe to click on. Are the lengthy urls really necessary?

Last thing I need to ask is how does this add value to Smartermail? If anything this seems very spammy and kind of makes the bouce look cheap.

Andrew Replied

9/11/2014 at 1:30 PM

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your comments, and we value your feedback. To answer each of your points:

"betterbounces.net" is a effectively a consumer 'help' page, which aims explain bounce error codes in a more friendly & actionable manner. It is a webpage that bounce.io have setup in order to aid the end consumers of our bounced emails (or, for that matter, anyone which might have a question about bounced email!).

Regarding the 'prefer no ads' link. That link should work, and my recent testing it does. If you'd like to email the specific version of that link which failed to: support@bounce.io, we'll look into the issue. Does it fail across two or more enhanced bounces? or just one?

Regarding the absence of TOS/privacy links, we're working on a adjusted template which we can enable for you shortly. In addition, we're working on a backend change which will cater automatically for the scenario you're experiencing.

The "lengthy URLs" are 'hashes' of information about the bounce, and enable us to analyze (in aggregate) the experience and usefulness of the bounce.io service. It doesn't send any personally identifiable information, and enables us to continually improve the service.

If you've got further feedback & requests, feel free to drop us an email to: support@bounce.io

Regards, Andrew.

Andrea Free Replied

9/11/2014 at 1:55 PM

Employee Post

Hi Steve,

The bounce.io partnership add TREMENDOUS value to SmarterMail by a) giving a good, clear and concise explanation about why an email failed to deliver, in a nice and clean format instead of the jumbled mess of a normal bounce, thereby improving the user experience, b) it gives hosting companies and ISPs the ability to turn their mail servers into revenue generators, with no out-of-pocket costs, while still allowing individual users to 'opt out' of the ads should they choose and c) it can possibly reduce support costs by removing the need for a user to call and ask why a message didn't get delivered.

There have already been several signups and an all around positive response. We'll be putting out some more information on this within the next couple of weeks so you can look forward to that as well.

Thanks!

Andrea Free SmarterTools Inc. 877-357-6278 www.smartertools.com

Tim Uzzanti Replied

9/11/2014 at 2:24 PM

Employee Post

Steve,

We appreciate the feedback. We are still working out all the kinks with the Bounce.IO integration and why SmarterTools hasn't formally made any announcements other than the release notes. Interesting enough, there have been a number of SmarterMail customers that saw the release notes and immediately signed up for the service.

Andrew and his team have been working very diligently to make this integration as simple as possible and we appreciate any time they spend in our community helping SmarterMail customers understand the technical aspects but also the overall opportunity! As an FYI, their most recent effort is to improve the overall look and functionality of the Bounce Message which I was shown today.

SmarterTools is looking for partnerships just like this; that help SmarterMail customers earn revenue! Its a difficult world out there and want to give our customers the best chance of success. By helping end-users of SmarterMail better understand bounced messages, it will reduce the load on Administrators and/or Technical Support departments for ISP's/Hosting Providers. In addition, there is no reason NOT to monetize these bounce messages of which Bounce.IO is sharing 50% of the proceeds. I am very proud of the work we have done and the reason we have done it!

And were not done! We are looking at other partnerships as well...

Thanks,

Tim Uzzanti

Tim Uzzanti CEO SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com

Steve Reid Replied

9/12/2014 at 5:18 AM

I would have liked both of your responses if I could have...

Will do more testing this morning

Steve Reid Replied

9/12/2014 at 5:36 AM

What are the external IPs I need to add to bypass gateways??

Why didn't auto population work?

Brian Davidson Replied

9/14/2014 at 10:26 PM

Auto population does not appear to be working for us either.

Bruce Barnes Replied

9/16/2014 at 6:36 PM

We found a major bug with bounce.io today in that their code allows the removal of the only e-mail address associated with an account and, effectively, locks out the account and all associated domains and IP addresses.

To their credit, the support staff at bounce.io reset the account, but, when re-activated, nothing auto-populated: neither the domains or IP addresses.

We've also sent several tests and anything received back by Comcast is being bounced back to them by Comcast because Comcast says it looks like it is supposed to be originating from our servers and our DMARC policy states no one else is allowed to send on our behalf.

We are also, by HIPAA, prohibited from using someone else's server as a gateway, and I'm not going to whitelist someone's service - we pretty much prohibit whitelisting on all of our managed MX servers, so this limits us a lot.

We're definitely interested in seeing where this goes, but have already had two large law firms and one medical facility say no to having it used on their domains because of the advertising content.

Bruce Barnes ChicagoNetTech Inc brucecnt@comcast.net Phonr: (773) 491-9019 Phone: (224) 444-0169 E-Mail and DNS Security Specialist Network Security Specialist Customer Service Portal: https://portal.chicagonettech.com Website: https://www.ChicagoNetTech.com Security Blog: http://networkbastion.blogspot.com/ Web and E-Mail Hosting, E-Mail Security and Consulting

Andrew Replied

9/24/2014 at 11:09 AM

Hi Bruce,

Thanks for your comments & feedback -- much appreciated.

To each of your points: a) the bug you mentioned is scheduled to be repaired shortly, and then future signups won't be at risk of this 'lock' out. The IPs/domains are configured to reload each night, and hopefully they were populated by the next day. If not, please let us know via support@bounce.io, and we'll help you further.

b) regarding the bounces with/to/from Comcast. Our enhanced bounces should only be delivered to your own users, for bounces that are authored by your system, not by Comcast. If a Comcast user emails a non-existent user at your mail system, then it is Comcast that authors and delivers that bounce, and it wouldn't be enhanced by us.

c) Regarding HIPAA. We haven't (yet) spent time analyzing the HIPAA requirements and what that means for our bounce service. I can say one thing though: we don't receive the 'body text' from your SmarterMail server, only the bounce notice generated by your server which is just email headers & error code information. This is parsed, enhanced, and sent back to the user.

d) we recognize that some clients will not want the advertising content, and we give each recipient of our bounces a link to 'opt out' (immediately) of enhanced bounces & ads. We are currently exploring other pricing models whereby the ads can be stripped out entirely for a whole user base. I shall drop you an email directly regarding this possibility.

Thanks again for your feedback -- it helps direct the improvement of our product & service.

Regards, Andrew.

Nicolas Le Merle Replied

10/19/2014 at 11:18 AM

Hey Guys,

I have also found a bit of a flaw with the way the bounced email is delivered to the sender.

The bounced.io servers will send the 'enhanced' bounced email as 'postmaster@mydomain.com' where mydomain.com is the local domain hosted on my SmarterMail server and because I have the "Enable domain's SMTP auth setting for local deliveries" option set to enabled, the bounced email fails authentication and never reaches the end user because of course bounce.io cannot authenticate.

Now I really love this concept :) and I was able to get it working by disabling SMTP auth for local delivery to see how it all works, my question is: is it safe to allow unauthenticated emails to local deliveries ? It seems pretty harmless to me..

Cheers,

Nic