Issue with SMTP Server (Exim) Receiving Mail, 550 Administrative Prohibition

apsarah

• September 19, 2015 05:11

I'm currently experiencing issues with inbound mail not getting passed the EHLO / HELO step during an inbound SMTP transaction. I have tried toggling the "Require HELO before MAIL" option on and off (Service Configuration>Exim Configuration Manager>All), as well as restarting the service, rebooting the server, and rebuilding exim, but unfortunately none of these worked. Please see the below SMTP output (Port 25 of below hostname)
220-eha.domain.com ESMTP Exim 4.85 #2 Sat, 19 Sep 2015 03:06:56 -0500 220-We do not authorize the use of this system to transport unsolicited, 220 and/or bulk e-mail. HELO google.com 550 Administrative prohibition quit 221 eha.domain.com closing connection
Has anyone experienced this before? What did you do to fix this?

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  cPanelMichael

  • September 21, 2015 03:06

  Hello :) Do you have any custom options enabled in the /etc/exim.conf.local file on this system? Does this happen when using HELO names other than google.com? Thank you.

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  apsarah

  • September 29, 2015 05:27

  Hi, I haven't enabled any custom options for exim, and yes it happens for other HELO values.

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  Jcats

  • September 29, 2015 13:45

  Can you see if anything helpful shows if you
  # tail -f /var/log/maillog /var/log/exim_mainlog
  while sending a test email

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  cPanelMichael

  • October 03, 2015 18:14

  New Hi, I haven't enabled any custom options for exim, and yes it happens for other HELO values.

  
  Hello :) You can search for one of the email addresses that's failing to proceed past the HELO check in the Exim logs with commands such as:
  exigrep user@domain /var/log/exim_mainlog exigrep user@domain /var/log/exim_rejectlog
  Do you notice any particular output that helps clarify the reason for the rejection? Thank you.

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  apsarah

  • October 17, 2015 09:47

  Thanks for everyone's help, I reviewed the exim settings and found a HELO reject subroutine which was anticipated to prevent connections at HELO from a specific host. It appeared to be causing the issue, as after removing the aforementioned subroutine, the SMTP system returned to normal. Thanks again everyone.

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  cPanelMichael

  • October 21, 2015 14:47

  I am happy to see the issue is now resolved. Thank you for updating us with the outcome.

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