Can Someone Smarter Than Me Help Troubleshoot Why My Server's Emails Are Going To Spam?
Tags: help, selfhosted, sysops, ubuntu
Published: 2018-10-17 15:45:27

---
title: Can Someone Smarter Than Me Help Troubleshoot Why My Server's Emails Are Going To Spam?
published: true
description: I need help trying to figure out why my server's emails are all going to spam.
tags: help, selfhosted, sysops, ubuntu
---

I have a LEMP server running Ubuntu 14.04 and using Mail-in-a-Box as the mail server. 

I have a LAMP server running Ubuntu 16.04 that I had initially setup Postfix to use as an SMTP Relay through the Mail in a Box. I thought it was working,  but now  it seems all my emails are going to spam. It's really just for the one site so I uninstalled Postfix and just installed a WordPress SMTP plugin but that didn't seem to make a difference. 

As far as I can find, none of my domain names or IPs are showing up on Blacklists

I ran an email through the [Is Not Spam](http://www.isnotspam.com) tester and here are the results:


```
==========================================================
Summary of Results
==========================================================

SPF Check : pass
Sender-ID Check : pass
DKIM Check : pass
SpamAssassin Check : ham (non-spam)
==========================================================
Details:
==========================================================

HELO hostname: box.harnerdesigns.com
Source IP: <My Mail Server IP>
mail-from: hello@harnerdesigns.com
Anonymous To: <random email>@isnotspam.com
---------------------------------------------------------
SPF check details:
----------------------------------------------------------

Result: pass
ID(s) verified: smtp.mail=hello@harnerdesigns.com
DNS record(s):
harnerdesigns.com. 1799 IN TXT "v=spf1 include:servers.mcsv.net include:box.harnerdesigns.com include:server.harnerdesigns.com ?all"


----------------------------------------------------------
Sender-ID check details:
----------------------------------------------------------

Result: pass

ID(s) verified: smtp.mail=hello@harnerdesigns.com
DNS record(s):
harnerdesigns.com. 1799 IN TXT "v=spf1 include:servers.mcsv.net include:box.harnerdesigns.com include:server.harnerdesigns.com ?all"


----------------------------------------------------------
DKIM check details:
----------------------------------------------------------

Result: pass
ID(s) verified: header.From=hello@harnerdesigns.com
Selector=mail
domain=harnerdesigns.com
DomainKeys DNS Record=mail._domainkey.harnerdesigns.com

----------------------------------------------------------
SpamAssassin check details:
----------------------------------------------------------
SpamAssassin 3.4.1 (2015-04-28)

Result: ham (non-spam) (03.7points, 10.0 required)

pts rule name description
---- ---------------------- -------------------------------


* 3.5 BAYES_99 BODY: Bayes spam probability is 99 to 100%
* [score: 1.0000]
* -0.0 SPF_HELO_PASS SPF: HELO matches SPF record
* -0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record
* -0.0 RP_MATCHES_RCVD Envelope sender domain matches handover relay domain
* 0.2 BAYES_999 BODY: Bayes spam probability is 99.9 to 100%
* [score: 1.0000]
* 0.1 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML included in message
* -0.1 DKIM_VALID_AU Message has a valid DKIM or DK signature from author's
* domain
* 0.1 DKIM_SIGNED Message has a DKIM or DK signature, not necessarily
* valid
* -0.1 DKIM_VALID Message has at least one valid DKIM or DK signature
X-Spam-Status: Yes, hits=3.7 required=-20.0 tests=BAYES_99,BAYES_999,
DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID,DKIM_VALID_AU,HTML_MESSAGE,RP_MATCHES_RCVD,
SPF_HELO_PASS,SPF_PASS autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.0
X-Spam-Score: 3.7

To learn more about the terms used in the SpamAssassin report, please search
here: http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/
```

## Couple Questons
1. Do I need to include `harnerdesigns.com` in the SPF record? `box.harnerdesigns.com` is the mail server and `server.harnerdesigns.com` is the LAMP server, but `harnerdesigns.com` is what domain all the email will be sent as.
2. Looking at the `X-Spam-Status` is the `required=-20.0` just part of how Is Not Spam sets it up so it blocks everything? Everything I've seen says you just need to keep your spam score under 5 to get through most filters. 
3. I'm not sure how else to troubleshoot this issue. Any suggestions on where to look next?