Hi Rachel,

There's discussion on the [email protected] mailing list about a
support reply from neverbounce.com.  (Please keep
[email protected] CC'd.)

> > > From: "Rachel (NeverBounce)" <[email protected]>
> > > To: Viktor Szépe <[email protected]>
> > > Subject: Re: false positive
> > > Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2019 19:40:15 +0100
...
> > > We did have the chance to review the email in question, and it
> > > appears  the domain is not configured properly, which is why the
> > > email is being  marked as invalid.

For delivering [email protected], the DNS entries are

    $ dig +nocomment @8.8.8.8 lists.sdaoden.eu.

    ; <<>> DiG 9.13.7 <<>> +nocomment @8.8.8.8 lists.sdaoden.eu.
    ; (1 server found)
    ;; global options: +cmd
    ;lists.sdaoden.eu.              IN      A
    lists.sdaoden.eu.       14399   IN      CNAME   sdaoden.eu.
    sdaoden.eu.             14399   IN      A       217.144.132.164
    ;; Query time: 52 msec
    ;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
    ;; WHEN: Wed Mar 27 10:12:48 GMT 2019
    ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 75

    $

RFC 5321, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, says

    https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5321#section-5

    The lookup first attempts to locate an MX record associated with the
    name.  If a CNAME record is found, the resulting name is processed
    as if it were the initial name.

lists.sdaoden.eu has no MX record, but does have a CNAME for sdaoden.eu
and so that should be then treated as the initial name.

sdaoden.eu has no MX record.  This is also covered in that section of
RFC 5321:

    If an empty list of MXs is returned, the address is treated as if it
    was associated with an implicit MX RR, with a preference of 0,
    pointing to that host.

Thus sdaoden.eu is to be treated as an MX RR record.  A lookup on that
gives the A record for 217.144.132.164.  That IP address is the one to
connect to.

Perhaps NeverBounce are getting confused with this part:

    When a domain name associated with an MX RR is looked up and the
    associated data field obtained, the data field of that response MUST
    contain a domain name.  That domain name, when queried, MUST return
    at least one address record (e.g., A or AAAA RR) that gives the IP
    address of the SMTP server to which the message should be directed.
    Any other response, specifically including a value that will return
    a CNAME record when queried, lies outside the scope of this
    Standard.

So an MX RR's value can't resolve to a CNAME, but the implicit one above
doesn't, it gives an A.  It's perfectly valid, and explicitly covered
above, for the lookup desiring an MX to find a CNAME.

Please can you re-appraise NeverBounce's RFC compliance.  Thanks.

Steffen, don't change you DNS configuration.  It's correct and helps
flush out problems like this that may be affecting NeverBounce's
treatment of other addresses.

-- 
Cheers, Ralph.

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