Re: [Sheflug] For People with Google Mail Addresses

[Andy Halsall <andyhalsall@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thursday 05 March 2009 15:28:52 Richard Ibbotson wrote:
> On Thursday 05 March 2009 14:22:56 Andy Halsall wrote:
> > Further to the above (I already replied using my usual email
> > address (andyhalsall@xxxxxxxxx) for this list below..) I have just
> > successfully subscribed to this list with my Gmail address (using
> > the @gmail.com domain) and, having received my subscription
> > confirmation, and as this email has arrived on the list and is
> > presumably visible to you all... it would seem all is fine
> > regardless.
>
> I think you've missed the point here.  Give it about six to twelve
> months and then see what happens.  Should be a bit like the blue to
> red change in Litmus paper.

I clearly have, could you reiterate it?

I thought the issue was subscribing and / or receiving list mails using a 
@gmail.com suffixed address was not possible as gmail.com email addresses were 
either being marked as spam, or appeared forged to the listmailer.  

Now given that you can do a number of things to check the validity of an email 
address automatically, including simply asking the mailserver is for a given 
domain whether an account exists it seems perfectly possible that google's 
mail servers could be  rejecting gmail addresses if the account is actually a 
googlemail account (although that is utter speculation, and probably wrong, 
see below).  Just to clarify I doubt that anyone has marked gmail but **not** 
googlemail as a spam domain in a DNSBL, and you said you checked your own 
address out, so that would suggest that the issue is somewhere else. 

Just as an additional point, the MX records for gmail and googlemail appear to 
be the same, if I try and get the gmail smtp server to validate a recipient 
for me, I always get the same response (actually this is how I set up my kit 
too...):

%telnet 209.85.217.23 25
Trying 209.85.217.23...
Connected to 209.85.217.23.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mx.google.com ESMTP 27si484961gxk.50
EHLO mail.ictsc.com
250-mx.google.com at your service, [82.47.216.107]
250-SIZE 35651584
250-8BITMIME
250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
250 PIPELINING
VRFY andyhalsall@xxxxxxxxx
252 2.1.5 Send some mail, I'll try my best 27si484961gxk.50
VRFY andyhalsall@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
252 2.1.5 Send some mail, I'll try my best 27si484961gxk.50
VRFY thisisprobablyafakeaddressthatnoonehas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
252 2.1.5 Send some mail, I'll try my best 27si484961gxk.50
VRFY thisisalsoafakeaddressthatsomeonehasnotgot@xxxxxxxxx
252 2.1.5 Send some mail, I'll try my best 27si484961gxk.50

So it doesn't look to me as though anything is going wrong at the google end 
as far as verifying addresses (the way you are meant to) on request is 
concerned, nor is there anything inherently abnormal in the SMTP servers 
responses.

I should add that I can happily use my gmail addresses to subscribe to and 
receive list mails (including on Debian lists, I am receiving debian-security-
announce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx mail fine to my gmail address and have been for a 
long time, even if I stopped reading them regularly some time ago...).  So 
without being able to reproduce the issue, I would only ask whether there is 
something particular to your email address that is throwing things out or 
whether there is something strange going on at Debian that is not having an 
impact on everyone.

But as I said, I may have missed whatever the point was you were trying to 
make, I particularity don't know what you mean by having to wait a number of 
months before I will notice a change in the situation.



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