My client is using iCloud Mail with his custom domain and he communicated with many govt organizations which seem to all be using Barracuda Email Protection for their spam prevention. I have properly configured his SPF, DKIM & DMARC DNS records however his emails were still being rejected. (Email header below)
I contacted Barracuda support with the email header and they replied saying that the emails were rejected becuase Apple Mail has missing PTR records.
I have sent dozens of emails for testing and looking at all their headers I can see (ms-asmtp-me-k8s.p00.prod.me.com [17.57.154.37]) which does not have a PTR record.
----FULL EMAIL HEADER WITH 3RD PARTY DOMAINS REMOVED-----
<recipient_email_address>: host
d329469a.ess.barracudanetworks.com[209.222.82.255] said: 550 permanent
failure for one or more recipients (recipient_email_address:blocked)
(in reply to end of DATA command)
Reporting-MTA: dns; p00-icloudmta-asmtp-us-west-3a-100-percent-10.p00-icloudmta-asmtp-vip.icloud-mail-production.svc.kube.us-west-3a.k8s.cloud.apple.com
X-Postfix-Queue-ID: 8979C18013F8
X-Postfix-Sender: rfc822; sender_email_address
Arrival-Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2025 12:30:05 +0000 (UTC)
Final-Recipient: rfc822; @******
Original-Recipient: rfc822;recipient_email_address
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Remote-MTA: dns; d329469a.ess.barracudanetworks.com
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550 permanent failure for one or more recipients
(recipient_email_address:blocked)
Return-Path: <sender_email_address>
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=sender_domain;
s=sig1; bh=CyUt/U7mIHwXB5OQctPjRH/OxLH7GsLR54JjGuRkj9Y=;
h=From:Message-Id:Content-Type:Mime-Version:Subject:Date:To:x-icloud-hme;
b=hwEbggsctiCRlMlEgovBTjB/0sPRCb2k+1wzHRZ2dZNrZdOqvFSNWU+Aki9Bl8nfv
eEOoXz5qWxO2b2rEBl08lmRQ3hCyroayIn4keBRrgkxL1uu4zMTaDUHyau2vVnzC3h
ZmwQtQxiu7QvTS/Sp8jjJ/niOPSzlfhphqMxnQAZi/jmJGcZPadT8K+7+PhRllVnI+
TElJarN1ORQu+CaPGhEs9/F7AIcjJNemnVg1cude7EUuO9va8ou49oFExWTLt7YSMl
s+88hxxGu3GugD3eBnitzVo7s7/O9qkIbDUjk3w04/p/VOJ+35Mvi+v/zB9brpYwC1
B4dZP+AhwJDYA==
Received: from smtpclient.apple (ms-asmtp-me-k8s.p00.prod.me.com [17.57.154.37])
by p00-icloudmta-asmtp-us-west-3a-100-percent-10.p00-icloudmta-asmtp-vip.icloud-mail-production.svc.kube.us-west-3a.k8s.cloud.apple.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 8979C18013F8;
Thu, 20 Mar 2025 12:30:05 +0000 (UTC)
From: Marcel Brunel <sender_email_address>
Message-Id: <2E8D69EA-FCA6-4F5D-9D42-22A955C073F6@sender_domain>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="Apple-Mail=_F9AC7D29-8520-4B25-9362-950CB20ADEC5"
Mime-Version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 16.0 (3826.400.131.1.6))
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] - Re: Brunel - 2024 taxes
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2025 07:29:27 -0500
In-Reply-To: <SA0PR18MB350300DE7274C018F66EEA24F2D82@SA0PR18MB3503_namprd18_prod_outlook_com>
To: Troy Womack <recipient_email_address>
References: <SA0PR18MB350314D0B88E283C5C8E1BB6F2DE2@SA0PR18MB3503_namprd18_prod_outlook_com>
<9B337A3E-D373-48C5-816F-C1884BDA6F42@sender_domain>
<SA0PR18MB350341A7172E8632D018A910F2D82@SA0PR18MB3503_namprd18_prod_outlook_com>
<SA0PR18MB350300DE7274C018F66EEA24F2D82@SA0PR18MB3503_namprd18_prod_outlook_com>
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.3826.400.131.1.6)
X-Proofpoint-ORIG-GUID: uqebp2OIbPqBr3dYsAxdFVkCNbM5Cxyl
X-Proofpoint-GUID: uqebp2OIbPqBr3dYsAxdFVkCNbM5Cxyl
X-Proofpoint-Virus-Version: vendor=baseguard
engine=ICAP:2.0.293,Aquarius:18.0.1093,Hydra:6.0.680,FMLib:17.12.68.34
definitions=2025-03-20_03,2025-03-19_01,2024-11-22_01
X-Proofpoint-Spam-Details: rule=notspam policy=default score=0 bulkscore=0 clxscore=1030
suspectscore=0 mlxlogscore=999 mlxscore=0 phishscore=0 malwarescore=0
spamscore=0 adultscore=0 classifier=spam adjust=0 reason=mlx scancount=1
engine=8.19.0-2411120000 definitions=main-2503200077
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
iCloud & Data