Yesterday I found out why my Tell-a-friend (TAF) script had stopped delivering traffic: my server had been blacklisted. As I'm using this mail server only for personal support emails and the TAF script, I suspect someone had put some "dirty" email addresses into my tell-a-friend form. Finding this out took me a lot of time (didn't know what to look for at first). And if I wouldn't be monitoring traffic that closely, a week may have passed before I had figured out what was going on. I'd like to avoid this ... that's why I've been looking for "something" that can warn me in case my servers have been blacklisted. I found several solutions, some open source and self hosted like nagios(plus a dnsrbl plugin) and other services like deliveryipmonitor etc. I'm wondering is there anybody in this forum with experience monitoring their servers for blacklistings. And what tools would you recommend? And why? Thanks Roger
Hi Roger, Mxtoolbox.com has a great tool at http://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx that will allow you to check your IP for blacklists. Normally, if you are the admin of the server, you should be receiving abuse reports before your IPs are sent to blacklist. We regularly get 24 hour notice for all spam complaints against our IPs for instance. You can also install a monitoring service (open source aka free) such as Nagios to monitor traffic on your email ports such as:http://www.nagios.com/solutions/email-monitoring Best of luck!
ryansa makes a good point with mxtoolbox checking for blacklistings. I don't know your exact problem, but you might be able to implement validation checking and (email) lookup to avoid "dirty" emails. Also, check to make sure your email server is not running as an open relay. http://www.mailradar.com/openrelay/ http://www.checkor.com/ http://www.antispam-ufrj.pads.ufrj.br/
Thank you for the tips. I'm going to try the suggested email validation to prevent me from further spam problems. Concerning the monitoring software: I'm looking for a solution that does permanent monitoring (like nagios does but for blacklists). And I've seen mxtoolbox offers a similar paid service here: http://mxtoolbox.com/services_servermonitoring2.aspx Does anyone have experience with such paid Software as a Service providers for blacklist monitoring? Are there any advantages over "free" solutions like nagios + plugin? (except the hassle to get nagios set up and running) Are there any disadvantages I have to take into account?
I think you hit it on the head why it's worthwhile to pay for an external service. Nagios is a pain to setup unless you find an appliance that works turnkey or right out of the box. However, I usually try the opensource or free route first (when in reason and time allows). Another disadvantage is depending on your environment you would have to setup monitoring for your Nagios system (or Daemon) to make sure you stay covered. It's a small disadvantage, but still a disadvantage over a paid service. Also, I feel that mxtoolbox has their stuff together since they have been around for along time and I trust their service. If you have the time, resources and skills go for Nagios then you can always switch or add a paid service and the provide your own comparison from experience.
Sounds like the a hosted service is well worth the money and will save me a lot of technical trouble setting up nagios. I'm going to give mxtools a shot next week, unless anybody around here knows or recommends a similar but better service (in case there is any). Many thanks!
Roger, What you are looking for is called DNS Blacklist Monitoring. Dotcom-Monitor's ServerView platform offers such service starting from $9.99. I'm not aware if there are free services of this kind though. I hope this helps, Alex
there is a few more monitors: http://internetlifeforum.com/resell...t-get-notiffied-when-ip-blacklisted/#post1334 im using freeblacklistmonitor. its most convenient 4me
There is a DNS blacklist monitor software that can scan and monitor multiple IP addresses http://www.blmonitor.net/
We have our inhouse real time monitoring software which notifies us if the IP is blacklisted. In the backend we have used nagios for it. We perform the real time checks on all the VPS/Dedicated/Shared servers that we host.