Need help...outgoing email stuck in spool

Problem reported by Joe Burkhead - 9/8/2015 at 7:03 AM

Resolved

Got to work this morning and discovered that all email sent outside of our local domain has been residing in the spool since late Friday afternoon.

Trying to troubleshoot in the logs...strange thing is occurring. All messages show an attempt to connect to 54.235.159.97, and the connection times out.

We use third party outgoing gateways to send our email through. These servers provide Zix encryption for any message containing PHI (protected health information). Neither of the servers we send through are on the above IP, nor anything close.
I did disable the outgoing gateways to see if this made a difference and it does not. All messages remain in the spool. I have restarted the SM service, restarted the server...no difference. Running version 14.2.5711.

Anyone seen anything like this?

Joe

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Joe Burkhead Replied

9/8/2015 at 7:03 AM

Should add that incoming email is fine, as is internal email.

Bruce Barnes Replied

9/8/2015 at 8:41 AM

Where, and how, are you encrypting the messages with the ZIX encryption?

If you are using ZIX at the desktop, you need to make certain you are not modifying either the SENT FROM or REPLY TO e-mail addresses in the message header.

If you are using the ZIX gateway, then you need to, again, make certain that the SENDING ADDRESS is a valid address on your SmarterMail server, that you have not modified the SENT FROM or REPLY TO e-mail addresses, in the header, and that your message is PROPERLY AUTHENTICATED by the SENDER's e-mail address.

A failure in any of these areas will cause non delivery, even if the messages are able to get through the outbound SmarterMail message queue as all e-mail must now be fully authenticated back to the SENDING E-MAIL ADDRESS.

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

Joe Burkhead Replied

9/8/2015 at 9:05 AM

Thanks, Bruce. The encryption is done on a third party operated Zix Gateway, which has been in place for 3 years. Everything has worked fine until last Friday afternoon.
I have opened a ticket with SM, and Rod is looking into it. So puzzling that ALL outbound email is trying to run through an IP that neither we or our gateway provider has anything to do with. Just strange.

Joe

Bruce Barnes Replied

9/8/2015 at 10:17 AM

Thanks for responding so quickly. Since this started suddenly, it is probably not related to anything you did. Please keep us posted as to the outcome.

Employee Replied

9/8/2015 at 3:40 PM

Employee Post

Hi all. This wound up being caused by a DNS issue returning the wrong IP address.

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