EIR PTR / Reverse DNS

kjb75

Hi,

I have a static IP at home with Eir and host my own website and mail server (at home).

The problem is my emails are going to users spam because I don't have a PTR record set up. The only people who can set this up is the ISP (Eir) on their name servers.

I have been through the mill with Eir tech support and their static IP department and no one seems to know what I'm talking about. They won't transfer me to someone in a higher department who might understand.

I came across this post on here and he seemed to get it resolved but I haven't got a reply:

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2055506300/who-to-contact-in-eircom-for-reverse-dns-setup

Does anyone know where I can go from here as I stuck at a dead end!

Thanks in advance,

Keith.

kjb75

Just in case someone comes across this… The only way I got it resolved was to submit a complaint to Eir using the following URL:

https://www.eir.ie/complaints/

Glaceon

I did this many years ago by sending a mail to dnsrequests@eircom.net but I think that address was discontinued.

ItHurtsWhenIP

Have you setup SPF, DKIM and DMARC records on your Domain's DNS config?

If you haven't, then Microsoft, Google and most of the big players will just flag your email as spam all the time.

melchior1951

The easiest solution would be to rent a cheap VPS e.g. at Hetzner Cloud for less than €5 per month and use that as an SMTP relay.

kjb75

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123980072#Comment_123980072

Yes, I have all those set up but email is still going to spam with the big boys!

jmcc

You may need to contact someone in Eir networks rather than the helpdesk.

Check that your IP address is allocated to you rather than simply being an Eir allocation. You can do this by checking your IP address on RIPE website.

https://apps.db.ripe.net/db-web-ui/query

If it has your name and details, that might make things easier. If it is listed as an Eir allocation, the IP address databases used by some mail providers could be flagging it as an ISP IP and that could be one of the reasons why your e-mails are being flagged as spam.

Setting up SPF and DKIM might help. The problem is that static IPs on ISPs generally get lumped in with ISP IP address in the third party IP databases especially if they don't have any WHOIS data other than the ISP's data.

kjb75

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123986111#Comment_123986111

Hi, Thanks for the info. I checked the IP and it is allocated to Eir.

Any ideas about how I would get in contact with Eir Networks?

28064212

Are you paying Eir for a business package? If not, they likely have no responsibility to provide you any support for this

kjb75

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123987551#Comment_123987551

Unfortunately not. It's a residential account. No one in tech support knows what I'm even asking for.

28064212

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123987644#Comment_123987644

Then there's not much you can do. If you persist, you might get lucky and get someone who knows what they're talking about AND they're willing to make the technical changes required. You also might (and probably will) end up going around in circles indefinitely. Or just get a firm "no, case closed", and there's nothing you can do about that.

Hosting on a residential connection is fine if this is a personal hobby project, but if it's in any way a commercial concern, get real hosting.

jmcc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123987466#Comment_123987466

Don't know about contacting Eir Networks but it might be possible to use the NOC e-mails in the IP address WHOIS records. As it is not a business account, they may not be able to help.

The IP may already have a reverse DNS record. If it has, there's one thing that might possibly work and that's designating the hostname used by Eir as the MX and using an SPF record in the DNS that reflects this.

It is also possible to designate an IP address in the SPF record using ipv4: aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd if there is no reverse set up on the IP. The SPF record is in the domain name's zone file. I haven't tried it and it may not get around the problem of the IP being considered an ISP IP. It would be a combined SPF record with the IP and your domain name's MX. The only way to see if it works is to test it.

Home hosting is much more common than people realise. I run a website IP survey on all the gTLDs each month and there are many Irish IPs on ISPs that are hosting websites.