I have to admit that I like mail routing issues. They make the day more interesting. They require a steady hand. And it is very satisfying when mail again routes. But there isn't an end to this story, as the Network/Telecommunications people have to do some work. This will, however, show you some additional troubleshooting ideas.
The backstory: Not all mail is routing to the internet. Certain domains, among them hotmail.com and yahoo.com addresses aren't being sent. There are also two other domains, not as large as those two, but people regularly send mail to them.
The first step. For those of you that don't want to click the link, I forced the Domino server to look at specific DNS using the Notes.INI setting, dnsserver= parameter. In this case, that did not help.
Next, check the server's name in Windows and compare that to the Domino Fully Qualified Internet Host Name. If they match, great. If not, change the Domino entry to match the Windows name. No need to restart the Domino server, but you do have to restart the Router.
Run a trace route of one of the offending domains. Make sure that there are no errors/timeouts between your server and the destination server.
Look at the Notes Log. Turn up logging to Verbose to get more detail. Send some messages and then check the log or the console. You might be able to glean some information from there.
Since nothing really revealed itself in the log/console, I added another parameter to the Notes.INI, SMTPClientDebug=1. Get ready for some amazing results in the Notes Log. Here is an example of what you may see (emphasis, mine):
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: CommandEHLO: EHLO xxxxxxxxx.xxx.xxx
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250-mail.xxxx.xxxx.xxx.xx Hello [xx.xxx.xxx.xxx]
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250-TURN
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250-SIZE
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250-ETRN
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250-PIPELINING
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250-DSN
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250-8bitmime
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250-BINARYMIME
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250-CHUNKING
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250-VRFY
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250-X-EXPS GSSAPI NTLM LOGIN
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250-X-EXPS=LOGIN
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250-AUTH GSSAPI NTLM LOGIN
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250-AUTH=LOGIN
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250-X-LINK2STATE
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250-XEXCH50
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250 OK
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: Attempting to SubmitMessage:
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: Pipelined commands:
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: MAIL FROM:<xxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxx.com> SIZE=35732
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: RCPT TO:<nomail@yahoo.com>
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: DATA
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: End of pipelined commands
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250 2.1.0 xxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxx.com....Sender OK
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 250 2.1.5 nomail@yahoo.com
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: ReceiveResponse: 354 Start mail input; end with <CRLF>.<CRLF>
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: Data Send Succeeded 39470 bytes
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: Connection broken after an error sending DATA command
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: Attempting to Disconnect:
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM [0398:0005-0DC4] SMTPClient: Connection already disconnected
02/19/2008 10:19:57 AM Router: No messages transferred to YAHOO.COM (host a.mx.mail.yahoo.com) via SMTP
Now, we are closer to the answer: "Connection broken after an error sending DATA command." This could be indicative of the release of Domino as it was fixed in Release 6.5.3. However, an IBM TechNote also mentions issues with anti virus on the Domino server:
When SMTP mail is sent from a Domino server with an attachment, some AntiVirus software vendors truncate the MIME structure when removing an attachment it believes has a virus. This causes the "Connection Broken" message when it attempts to send, and the problematic emails then stall outbound SMTP routing.
Or it could be a Cisco issue.
A better description of what is occurring:
The issue may occur because certain mail messages and/or network-related problems are causing the remote server or firewall/network to drop the connection after the DATA command has been sent.
Where does all of this leave the Messaging Administrator? Asking for more information or help from the Networking/Telecomm people. At this point, it doesn't appear to be strictly a messaging issue. But you have learned another troubleshooting tip: SMTPClientDebug=1 (remember to remove the line after you have completed your research).
A little note on SMTPClientDebug:
This parameter can be enabled to capture the outgoing SMTP protocol conversations. This is for all messages transferred by the router to other servers (Domino or otherwise) via the SMTP protocol. Note that this does not include the message content - just the higher-level protocol commands and responses.
1 - Enable capture of outbound SMTP message transfer protocol.
Link: SMTP Mail Requeued After the Error "Connection Broken After an Error Sending DATA Command"
Link: Domino 6.x: 'Connection Broken After an Error Sending DATA Command'
Link: Domino Router notes.ini debug parameters for SMTP
Technorati tag: SnTT Show-n-Tell Thursday
Comment posted by mike05/20/2008 01:54:37 PM
Homepage: http://worldmp3downloads.com/
you wrote - "Run a trace route of one of the offending domains"
how i can do this? help me please
Comment posted by Gregg Eldred05/20/2008 11:32:35 PM
Homepage: http://www.ns-tech.com/blog/geldred.nsf
@mike: Thanks for reading.
You first have to determine the IP Address of the MX for the receiving domain. You can find this information at http://www.dnsstuff.com, http://trustedsource.org, or manually.
On your Domino server, go to a Windows command prompt. Type:
tracert <IP Address found from your MX research>
Press enter. You are testing for the number of hops it takes from your server to the other server. I would expect that you will see some "time outs" or really long hop times.
More information on trace route can be found here:
http://kb.iu.edu/data/aihy.html
HTH.
Comment posted by leonte cristi07/01/2008 08:27:20 AM
Hi Gregg,
You're doing a great job here..really useful hint that one was..:)
I have Domino server behind a router, and just did not send e-mails untill I edited notes.ini and added DNS
Thank you
Comment posted by David Killingsworth08/12/2008 04:57:52 AM
Homepage: http://domino.symetrikdesign.com
We had a case about 3 months ago where we could send mail normally via our outbound SMTP gateway, except that there were about 4 or 5 domains that we could not route mail to.
Messages to those domains would not route. They would just sit in the mail.boxes.
We had just recently moved this server to a hosted facility at Atos Origin.
All of the configuration was exactly the same as before we moved it over. We had a secondary outbound SMTP gateway that hadn't been moved to the hosted facility yet, and we copied the messages from the mail.box on the hosted server and pasted them to the mail.boxes in the in-house server and the messages routed right away.
We searched for weeks on why this could be. We tried the following notes.ini settings to see what was happening at all levels and got IBM involved to help us.
log_mailrouting=40
debugrouter=3
Console_LogLevel=2
debug_threadid=1
smtpclientdebug=1
In the end, the problem turned out to be the network card teaming driver at the OS level (Windows 2003). We broke the network team and the problem went away.
Another thing you can do other than adding smtpclientdebug=1 is to telnet to the destination server and manually send the helo commands and see what kind of responses you get, if you can even connect to the server.
Comment posted by David Killingsworth08/12/2008 04:59:14 AM
Homepage: http://domino.symetrikdesign.com
We had a case about 3 months ago where we could send mail normally via our outbound SMTP gateway, except that there were about 4 or 5 domains that we could not route mail to.<br><br>Messages to those domains would not route. They would just sit in the mail.boxes.<br><br>We had just recently moved this server to a hosted facility at Atos Origin.<br><br>All of the configuration was exactly the same as before we moved it over. We had a secondary outbound SMTP gateway that hadn't been moved to the hosted facility yet, and we copied the messages from the mail.box on the hosted server and pasted them to the mail.boxes in the in-house server and the messages routed right away.<br><br>We searched for weeks on why this could be. We tried the following notes.ini settings to see what was happening at all levels and got IBM involved to help us.<br><br>log_mailrouting=40<br>debugrouter=3<br>Console_LogLevel=2<br>debug_threadid=1<br>smtpclientdebug=1<br><br>In the end, the problem turned out to be the network card teaming driver at the OS level (Windows 2003). We broke the network team and the problem went away.<br><br>Another thing you can do other than adding smtpclientdebug=1 is to telnet to the destination server and manually send the helo commands and see what kind of responses you get, if you can even connect to the server.
Comment posted by Christian Dencker12/02/2008 10:14:08 AM
Homepage: http://www.intravision.dk
I love mail routing too .... lots of fun
It's not your Domino SMTP server ! -> It's in the receiving end the problem is, or just outside your firewall ...egg. ISP routers, SPAM service, Anti Virus Service, another ISP's Connection or the receiving SMTP server .....
Use an intelligent Bounce service with your Domino Domain Monitor -> Mail Reflector probe to secure stability of you SMTP trafic ... egg. http://www.performance-peek.com.
A Bounce service will give you 2 things ->
1. Inbound/Outbound SMTP trafic is Working !
2. Inbound/Outbound SMTP trafic PERFORMS as it shall !
So the responce to your users will be ... E-Mail service is working as expected; We are performing as expected.
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