Hi y'all,
I resolved my Microsoft blocking my Linode IPv4 address issue. I posted
several times here as it
was happening, so this is a recap:
Microsoft's mitigation process is fragile and complex, perhaps
intentionally.
1. It requests forwarding the bounce message. My mailer (standard
Dovecot + Postfix) adds
a couple of attachments to the message. Microsoft will reject messages
with attachments
and not do anything. So you must remove the attachments before forwarding.
2. Microsoft's mitigation process handles both Office365 issues and
outlook.com etc issues.
They seem to make no distinction in the error messages. My bounces
indicated it was an
Office365 issue, but I followed that process several times with no
result. Finally, I filed
an outlook.com delisting ticket, and after some back and forth they
delisted me.
I wish Microsoft had a better system for communicating WHICH platform is
blocking and
the process for that platform.
3. After several tries, the Office365 mitigation process just stopped
working. After the forward
I receive an email saying "we will respond in 24 hours". The first few
times, this incuded
a link to the Office365 delisting process. But at some point, Microsoft
stopped responding.
I would get the "we will respond" email, but never anything more. It was
blamed on huge
traffic from Linode, but that wasn't the case (as it happened several
times over many days
and I NEVER got a response).
I truly appreciate the help I received from this list, and it is
fantastic that there are Microsoft,
Linode (and other companies) people here contributing. That made it
easier for me to find the
solution.
Linode has a mediocre reputation (I think this is undeserved) for IP
cleanliness. I contacted
Linode and they offered me an IP address known to be clean w/r/t
Microsoft filtering.
Changing a mailer's IP address is a dramatic operation so I haven't yet
decided to go through
with this. But they were professional, helpful, and I have been using
them for 15+ years,
and probably close to 10 on my current IPv4 address.
The reason I think their reputation is undeserved: I asked for better
hosters, and did receive
some recommendations. I checked these, calling one and speaking with
Sales, and reading
the websites of the others. They had no special restrictions or filters
regarding email, the
sales person I spoke to just said "we don't allow spammers". My guess is
that they are cleaner
IP addresses mostly because they are smaller, and spammers don't flock
to them.
Linode has been pretty good to me, and very responsive. There seems to
be a pile-on attitude
regarding them as mail servers, and in my opinion it is undeserved.
Thanks to all who contributed and helped me!
John
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