Multipart messages from postfix go to spam in gmail/hotmail

postfixsmtpspam

I'm new here and I'm sure this question has been thrown around a lot but I just couldn't find a solution. I have a networking website I've setup and we need to send notification mails to our members depending on activity related to their profiles(messages, comments etc).

We are hosting the site on Centos5.6 with VirtualMin and are using Postfix as our MTA. We also use google apps for email on the site. Heres the problem, the mails go through for some gmail users but more often than not, they end up in gmail,hotmail and yahoo spam.

We've setup the appropriate SPF codes on the server, DKIM and rDNS works fine.

v=spf1 ip4:xx.xx.xx.xx a mx include:_spf.google.com ~all

Below is a sample email that goes directly into gmail spam. I've replaced the actual values with dummy text (Ip, Domain etc)

Delivered-To: my.email@gmail.com
Received: by 10.143.165.5 with SMTP id s5cs223598wfo; Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:38:22 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.100.15.34 with SMTP id 34mr1202961ano.165.1302881901970; Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:38:21 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: 
Received: from server.domainxyz.com (server.domainxyz.com [xx.xx.xx.xx]) by mx.google.com with ESMTP id c12si6403722anc.63.2011.04.15.08.38.18; Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:38:20 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of apache@domainxyz.com designates xx.xx.xx.xx as permitted sender) client-ip=xx.xx.xx.xx;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of apache@domainxyz.com designates xx.xx.xx.xx as permitted sender) smtp.mail=apache@domainxyz.com; dkim=pass (test mode) header.i=@domainxyz.com
Received: by server.domainxyz.com (Postfix, from userid 48)
id 3549968563; Fri, 15 Apr 2011 21:08:18 +0530 (IST)
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=simple/simple; d=domainxyz.com;
s=domainxyz-mail; t=1302881898;
bh=l1LE96Pw4vGi1qCMy0/IALNzrln9ZKBKvnUdaevYI/Y=;
h=Toubject:From:Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-type:Message-Id:
Date;
b=cgnMgqhSoGbQlL8qVPOwsadU5JwyVIklw85ZkHpGF2L/Ge4MFvLQstnBt8Ot0UmG1
sZCC4oFDUH6e5Qd+jgfEdjBs2ax3inTV7FIz4kc0jXxNDEdrAw hik3IBwjrk1LLcep
6VIEYR+Zl9VwKgDHJn2OyJfB5h/eL+iIZCnoiGns=
To: Zahir Gmail 
Subject: Retrieve your login information
From: domainxyz.com 
Reply-To: domainxyz.com 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: multipart/alternative; charset=iso-8859-1;boundary=EmailBoundary.568d2e34be8b984d6bdc427f9 f43cc7c
Message-Id: 
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 21:08:18 +0530 (IST)

--EmailBoundary.568d2e34be8b984d6bdc427f9f43cc7c
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"


Hi Zahir Gmail,

You are receiving this email because we received a password reset request on domainxyz for your account. If you did not request for your password to be reset, please ignore this mail. 

The following are your account details :
Username : zahirgmail
Personalized URL : www.domainxyz.com/zahirgmail

To reset your password, click here - http://www.domainxyz.com/reset-passw...ame=zahirgmail 

We can't wait to see you on domainxyz

All tails wagging!


Slurps!
The domainxyz.com Team
www.domainxyz.com

Note : You are receiving this system generated email because you were registered on domainxyz.com If you haven't signed up with us, please report this mail by forwarding it to abuse@domainxyz.com. Inconvenience regretted. If you are a member, you can log onto your Notifications Page to change the notifications you receive from domainxyz.com. If you wish to change the email address on which you receive there notifications, please visit your Email Settings page. Please do not reply to this email, it will go nowhere.


domainxyz.com is a Social Networking website and is brought to you by domainxyz India Pvt Ltd. To know more about us, Click Here. If you wish to explore Business(Adverting, Marketing or Partnership) opportunities with us, please email us at marketing@domainxyz.com

--EmailBoundary.568d2e34be8b984d6bdc427f9f43cc7c
Content-Type: text/html; charset="ISO-8859-1"





-----

Would really appreciate any help we can get on this.

Best Answer

If exactly THIS is a real mail then the mail is not correctly formed.

  1. The HTML part is missing
  2. the final MIME boundary is missing
  3. the boundary defined in the header is not the boundary in the body (there is a space in front of f43cc7c)
  4. The Message-Id is missing
  5. The From: is missing the local part
  6. The To: is missing a complete mail address

And the last content line telling something about "opportunities", "click here" and "please email" is a strong indicator of spam (buzzwords).

By the way I'm wondering why you include Google in your SPF records? You are sending from your own server.

The best way would be to pipe this mail through SpamAssassin and look at the scores.

Also I really recommend reading RFC 3834 for automatically generated mails.

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