# Actionmailer issues...any experts? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [March 20, 2009, 7:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/actionmailer-issues-any-experts/196922 "2009-03-20T19:17:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tony](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ee7513/32.png) [@tony](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tony)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 7:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/actionmailer-issues-any-experts/196922/1 "2009-03-20T19:17:30Z")
I have a rails app that can send emails to gmail, yahoo accounts. But when it comes to more obscure accounts like removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid or removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid, the mail never arrives even though the log shows that the email was sent. Any ideas why this may be happening? I have sent an email directly through the same web server through the command line using mail -s and that worked. Why doesn’t it work through my rails app? here are my configuration settings (mostly default) # Disable delivery errors, bad email addresses will be ignored config.action\_mailer.delivery\_method = :smtp config.action\_mailer.raise\_delivery\_errors = true config.action\_mailer.perform\_deliveries = true config.action\_mailer.default\_charset = “utf-8” config.action\_mailer.smtp\_settings = { :address =\> “localhost”, :port =\> 25, :domain =\> “[my-app.com](http://my-app.com)” } help please! thanks Tony ---
**Author:** ![tony](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ee7513/32.png) [@tony](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tony)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/actionmailer-issues-any-experts/196922/2 "2009-03-22T19:55:20Z")
What does SPF mean? No when I use mail -s, the email is sent from removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid On Mar 20, 11:34 am, Frederick C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) ---
**Author:** ![tony](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ee7513/32.png) [@tony](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tony)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 7:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/actionmailer-issues-any-experts/196922/3 "2009-03-20T19:35:41Z")
On 20 Mar 2009, at 18:16, tony wrote: > I have a rails app that can send emails to gmail, yahoo accounts. But > when it comes to more obscure accounts like removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid or > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid, the mail never arrives even though the log shows > that > the email was sent. Any ideas why this may be happening? Different hosts might be more or less restrictive when it comes to spam (eg blacklists of ip ranges, whether they check SPF records etc…) > I have sent an email directly through the same web server through the > command line using > > mail -s and that worked. Why doesn’t it work through my rails app? I know nothing about mail -s. Does it send email through the same smtp server as your rails app. Would it set the same return-path/from address (which is what matters for SPF) as your rails app ? Fred ---
**Author:** ![tony](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ee7513/32.png) [@tony](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tony)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2009, 8:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/actionmailer-issues-any-experts/196922/4 "2009-03-22T20:42:13Z")
On Mar 22, 6:54 pm, tony [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > What does SPF mean? No when I use mail -s, the email is sent from > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid When you send an email from removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid the mail server on the other end can lookup the SPF record for the domain [bar.com](http://bar.com) (this info is part of the DNS records for [bar.com](http://bar.com)). In a nutshell the SPF records are used to determine whether the server sending mail from removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid is allowed to send mail on behalf of that domain. Different mail servers receiving mail may be more or less stringent: it could merely count towards a score that determines whether the message is classed as spam or might lead to it being rejected altogether. Fred