# Sendmail, rails and spam

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sendmail-rails-and-spam/137332>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [May 12, 2008, 4:21am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sendmail-rails-and-spam/137332 "2008-05-12T04:21:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![PeteSalty](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/bc79bd/32.png) [@PeteSalty](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/PeteSalty)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 4:21am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sendmail-rails-and-spam/137332/1 "2008-05-12T04:21:08Z")

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We’re having a terrible problem with sending email using sendmail and  
rails.

We believe we have everything set up correctly. (I’ve changed the  
domain name below because this is so embarrassing ). Our mail config  
looks like

ActionMailer::Base.delivery\_method = :sendmail  
ActionMailer::Base.sendmail\_settings = {  
:location =\> ‘/usr/sbin/sendmail’,  
:arguments =\> ‘-i -t -f removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid’  
}

our notifications look like

```
@from = "oursite <removed_email_address@domain.invalid>"
headers "Reply-to" => "removed_email_address@domain.invalid"

```

and we have an SPF record that resolves back to your one and only  
server. EMails are making it into gmail, fine, no problem, but are  
getting flagged as spam in Yahoo and are not even making it into  
Hotmail (which is crazy because my old hotmail account has around  
2000+ new messages in the inbox 99% of which are spam, and 11 in the  
spam folder, 2 of which are legit).

This may be off topic but I’m just stumped, and I’m not smart enough  
to work this out on my own. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to  
get this working or an alternative method (we’re using Slicehost for  
hosting if that make a difference).

Thanks in advance  
Dale

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**Author:** ![PeteSalty](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/bc79bd/32.png) [@PeteSalty](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/PeteSalty)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 3:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sendmail-rails-and-spam/137332/2 "2008-05-12T15:30:37Z")

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(Salty)Pete -

On 11-May-08, at 10:20 PM, PeteSalty wrote:

> :location =\> ‘/usr/sbin/sendmail’,  
> getting flagged as spam in Yahoo and are not even making it into  
> Dale  
> I’m certainly no expert in this regard, but one (of many) gotcha’s are  
> reverse dns. Be sure to have your hosting provider set it up.

There’s a link I tried to find that lists the top ten reasons why this  
can happen - that was one I didn’t know about. Google may turn it up.

Jodi

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**Author:** ![PeteSalty](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/bc79bd/32.png) [@PeteSalty](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/PeteSalty)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 9:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sendmail-rails-and-spam/137332/3 "2008-05-12T21:39:02Z")

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Thanks Jodi, we’ll give this a try and see if it works