Email Woes

Today was the day I set aside to study for the SCCM beta exam. Granted, I'd been reading off and on, playing in the lab. But today was the day to blow up the lab and rebuild everything with the RTM version and really dig and try different things.

Until.

One user can't send an email to a domain. The ticket gets escalated to me. I do the usual : MXToolbox, etc. We just came off of several blacklists due to some rocket scientist setting up a virus-infected client pc on our network that proceeded to send thousands of SPAM emails out. Yes, port 25 should have been blocked to not allow that traffic, but that was a decision by committee.

Further testing shows an email sent to any address on their domain bounces back almost immediately with that wonderfully useful 550 error.

So I start checking the blacklists again, and it appears that we're all in the clear.

I sent an email from an external account, and a reply came back about half an hour later. So their mail server is actually working.

I immediately decide to blame Postini, but the domain is not on any firmwide blacklists.

Finally I began to wonder if the email was ever even making it out of our environment. The bounceback usually arrived after less then 10 seconds, and that just seemed odd. So I collared out WAN guru and had him sniff the external interface for traffic on port 25 to Postini containing the offending domain... nothing. Specific strings in an email to the domain... nothing.

I set up a second SMTP connector to route email without going through Postini for email to that domain... still no dice. Messages just sit in the queue.

Now this is too weird.

I connect to their email server via good old telnet <servername.domain.com> 25 and get a happy SMTP response. I figured I'd send an email manually to the administrator, who by this time I'd spoken with to confirm that we weren't blacklisted on their end. I'd just let him know that I got this far in testing.

So I type : "EHLO mydomain.com" and get an error response.

That can't be right. There must have been a control character in there. So I type it again. Same error. I check to make sure my syntax is correct, and it is.

Then I try "HELO domain.com" and it works. Like a champ. I send the email. A quick check of our Exchange server shows, sure enough, that it is configured to send "EHLO" and not "HELO". In all the years we've been on Exchange, this is the first time I've run into another server that refuses "EHLO".

I telnet back in and explain the issue in another 'manual' email session. I'm not sure what this admin will respond with, but I'm not inclined to change our config for one domain.

Yes, we could set up a second SMTP connector to route email to that domain that IS configured to send "HELO". But at this point it's the principal of the thing.

We'll see how they respond.

Dumbest idea ever, redux:

John Scalzi finally got around to visiting the Creation Museum, which I blogged about briefly awhile back.

His post on his visit is priceless, and indicative of why he is a published SF writer and I am not. I could never describe a pile of horseshit so perfectly.

Read his post here. And skip not the comments thread. It's nearly as good as the post.

If you read Science Fiction and do not read Scalzi's blog, what are you thinking? Get thee to the RSS reader!

Obvious caveat: If you are a creationist young-earther, this probably ain't for you.

Thanksgiving

Things I am thankful for today:

My wife.

My kids.

A roof over my head (even if it is rented, and even if it is the worst house in a mediocre neighborhood).

Sassafras trees.

Autumn.

Trees in general.

Flat land and tall corn: the scenes of home.

The Discovery Channel.

Videotape.

Pictures, both digital and chemical.

The capacity to love.

Living in America, in the time that I do.

Call Maintenance:

The gravity generator in room 315 is on the fritz again.

70-400

Since the beta is nearing it's end (last day tomorrow!), I feel relatively safe in posting my thoughts that I jotted down the night after I took the test.

A short note that the SCCM beta is out next month. Keep an eye on MyITForum for details.

 

So I took the TS: Configuring Microsoft® System Center Operations Manager beta test on Friday. I found it a little disappointing, and I’ll tell you as much as I can without divulging questions or answers.

Firstly, it was strictly question – answer, your standard Microsoft exam. Some multiple choice, some select three of five, some select the right answer. No “Drag three of these five over there in the correct order”, no “Where would you click to do this”, no interactive at all. This could be simply because it was a beta test, I don’t know. But I found it a bit disappointing. I expected that since the exam is new that there would be a higher level of interactivity. Perhaps those questions are to come in the final exam.

It also lacked the dreaded "scenario" questions. Gone are the three paragraphs of garble that you have to sift through to find the two words that lead you to the "most right" answer. I didn't miss those at all.

There were many questions about restoring a dead RMS server. Be prepared to know how to do so, whether or not you have the encryption key backed up. And know the command line utilities associated with doing so.

Know how to import MOM 2005 management packs.

Know reporting and report subscriptions and publishing. This is likely the area I was least prepared for.

There were many questions around client monitoring. Know what the different client monitoring MP’s do, and what the “Business Critical” group is for.

Obviously, know what a Gateway Server is, and where it goes in a configuration where it’s needed. And know when you need it.

Know the difference between a console task and an agent task, and when each should be utilized.

The test was very straightforward, with very little I hadn’t encountered before. I relied upon real-world experience, reading all of the Microsoft documentation I could lay hands on, and watching the great MyITForumTV videos around SCOM.

It’s likely too late to sign up for the test, but if you’ve signed up and not taken it yet I wish you well.

Wait Until Next Year... again

I may be one of the only Cub fans that did NOT expect them to take the World Series this year. They were after all only the best team in the worst division, and in any other division would not have been in the playoffs. And you can't have Ramirez going 0-the series and expect to win.
Still, it was nice to watch the Cubbies play some October baseball again.
If they come back mostly intact next year, they should be a force in the division again and hopefully go farther in the playoffs. Maybe even all the way.
Go Cubs Go!

Great New Blog

New York Times columnist joins the blogsphere! Excellent posts abound at his blog here.