Identityblog mail configuration problem

After the recent attack on my WordPress  software, I moved identityblog to a new more powerful and securable server (I'm sticking with TextDrive – they're good guys and it is helpful for me to get a feel for what it's like to be “hosted”).

Recently I got a flock of messages like this one:

I tried again to comment using my card. It says it is sending me a mail. I waited 24 hours and nothing arrived. Are you sure your code is working and your sender address is not blocked by hotmail?

Of course I was sure – NOT.  I tested it out and my messages were definitely disappearing into a worm hole at hotmail, though getting through to a number of other mailboxes.

Yikes.  My first reaction was to wallow in the irony of it all.  But eventually reason prevailed and I started to look at the headers:

Received: by z07191AA.textdrive.com (Postfix, from userid 80)
    id 1749D1280F; Sun,  2 Dec 2007 19:43:24 +0000 (GMT)

Instead of  z07191AA.textdrive.com, the header should have read identityblog.com.

Somehow I had not succeeded in configuring the hosted mailserver on my TextDrive accelerator to use the right hostname.  Hotmail was smart enough to figure this out and give me the finger.  I guess that's why I get relatively little spam at hotmail.

Now I think I've fixed it, but it will probably take a while for the hostname to propagate.

So, my apologies to people who were trying to comment or try out Information Cards and couldn't register. 

On a side note, when I was reinstalling my blogging software to get all the latest fixes, I was reminded what a fantastic job Pamela Dingle has done in making it easy to configure the PamelaWare plugin that adds both Information Card and now OpenID support to WordPress. 

It provides the best diagnostics Ive ever seen when using certificates and something goes wrong.  I wonder if it would be possible for her plugin to send out an email message and analyse the headers to make sure they are set up in such a way that the registration messages will get through spam filters?  That would be very cool.

I guess a lot of us will be seeing her this week at the Internet Identity Workshop being held in Mountainview.  I'll see what she says.

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Kim Cameron

Work on identity.