[Mimedefang] Google is being nasty with greylisting

[Todd Aiken]

I had a nasty experience with Google when trying to sign up for Google
Groups a couple of nights ago.  I could not receive the confirmation
email from them, because they seem to be using a random from address in
the SMTP transaction, thus each time I would get a retry from them after
the initial greylist tempfail (or each time I would ask them to resend
the confirmation email), my server thinks that it is a new greylist
triplet:

May 27 23:58:59 JUNO mimedefang.pl[6676]:
MDLOG,l4S3wsl9008509,grey_new,240,64.233.184.130,2evnarhakbnstvvhngmlvgh
kxierzhhzextvhfmtbdxgnublahiltvt at gaia.bounces.google.com,todd.aiken at ubis
hops.ca,?
May 28 00:05:22 JUNO mimedefang.pl[8350]:
MDLOG,l4S45GYN008792,grey_new,240,64.233.184.130,29lrarhakbhmtvv4a398i34
7x51ez44z1xgv429t_0x3au_#.458gvt at gaia.bounces.google.com,todd.aiken at ubis
hops.ca,?
May 28 00:06:29 JUNO mimedefang.pl[8350]:
MDLOG,l4S46ONr008840,grey_new,240,64.233.184.130,2o1varhakbmkbddpvoutdop
sfqmzhpphmfbdpnubjlfovcjtipqtbdb at gaia.bounces.google.com,todd.aiken at ubis
hops.ca,?
May 28 00:13:11 JUNO mimedefang.pl[8821]:
MDLOG,l4S4D5iS009100,grey_new,240,64.233.184.130,2zfzarhakbhcxzz8e7dcm78
b_95i08805_kz86dx24_7ey2c189ckzx at gaia.bounces.google.com,todd.aiken at ubis
hops.ca,?
May 28 00:17:07 JUNO mimedefang.pl[9277]:
MDLOG,l4S4H2If009307,grey_new,240,64.233.184.130,2uvdarhakbm4giiuatzyitu
xkvremuumrkgiuszgoqktahoynuvygig at gaia.bounces.google.com,todd.aiken at ubis
hops.ca,?
May 28 00:22:31 JUNO mimedefang.pl[9396]:
MDLOG,l4S4MQYg009523,grey_new,240,64.233.184.130,#_vharhakbpoy..9f8edn89
c-a6j19916-l.97ey35-8fz3d29adl.y at gaia.bounces.google.com,todd.aiken at ubis
hops.ca,?

Looking closer at my logs, it's not just the one Google server doing
this, but many of them.  I ended up having to temporarily disable
greylisting so that the message would come through.

And now I just got a call from our Helpdesk saying that someone else is
having the exact same problem I did.

Is there anything I can do without either having to:

1) Whitelist all of Google's servers?
2) Turn off greylisting completely?
3) Send a complaint to Google asking them to stop doing this, which will
probably just end up in /dev/null

Once the confirmation message actually arrived, it ended up coming from
accounts-noreply at google.com - it's just the "MAIL FROM:" address in the
SMTP transaction phase that they are randomizing.


CU L8R...

Todd A. Aiken
Systems Analyst - Administrator
ITS Department
BISHOP'S UNIVERSITY
Lennoxville, Quebec, CANADA

HTML in email is like putting an air conditioner on a motorcycle.