E-mail discarded [was: Re: [plug] emails rejected]

[James Devenish]

In article <20041010095302.6338.41614 at shameless.plug.org.au>, Russ Powers wrote:
> After I fixed it, I was testing to make sure nothing broke. That's when
> I found that my yahoo account wasn't accepting mail from my server with
> the powerstech reply address. The other accounts work. I assume yahoo is
> doing a reverse dns lookup and sees my host isn't powerstech so dumps
> the mail.

Can you clarify:
 - If you send e-mail from your iiNet dialup account using the address
   russ at powerstech.com, it never arrives at Yahoo.
 - If you send e-mail from your iiNet dialup account using the address
   yourname at iinet.net.au, it is delivered successfully at Yahoo.

> I don't get any warning or notification. Is there a way around this
> or at least a way of being alerted that the mail isn't getting to its
> destination?

Ideally, mail servers shouldn't silently delete mail before it arrives
at its destination (although it could very validly be silently deleted
once it reaches its destination). That is, no mail should be silently
deleted by Yahoo unless *you* choose to have it automatically deleted at
the point when it arrives in your Yahoo mailbox. Unfortunately, in these
days of mass e-mail worms and spam, there is a need to suppress a lot of
mail. There is basically no universal or reliable way for you to know
that your messages have disappeared.