[SOLVED] Mail headers showing Received: from hostname (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])

[chrispage1]

Hi,

I've installed and configured PMG. We're relaying email both inbound and outbound via a smarthost. I noticed on the headers that I get the following -

Received: from mxserver.example.net (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])
    by mxserver.example.net (Proxmox) with ESMTP id 69FD7201062
    for <recipient@example.com>; Thu, 19 May 2022 04:15:28 +0100 (BST)

I've redacted the hostname & recipient. The hostname is fine bit you can then see the localhost.localdomain bit. My /etc/hosts file looks like the below:

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
PUBLIC_IP_HERE mxserver.example.net

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts

::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts

Any idea why this might be / is it a problem? I can imagine some mailservers seeing this as suspicious and flagging as spam...

Thanks,
Chris.

 

[Stoiko Ivanov]

Any idea why this might be /

yes - put shortly every single hop (SMTP server) usually adds a Received header to the top of the mail - for the following reasons:
* it helps detecting mail-loops (if a smtp server sees itself in the received headers it's a sign of a loop)
* it helps in debugging issues with mail transport
* it helps in seeing where a spam-mail/unwanted mail originated (at least the first trust-worthy hop will write where it received the mail from)

is it a problem? I can imagine some mailservers seeing this as suspicious and flagging as spam...

At least in my experience not really - mails getting passed through multiple hops inside some network (and also inside a single system) is quite a common pattern - and IIRC I've never seen any mail being rejected/treated as SPAM/... because localhost.localdomain or 127.0.0.1 showed up in the 'Received' headers

I hope this explains it!

 

[chrispage1]

Thank Stoiko,

Very useful indeed! Appreciate your help and I'll mark this as solved as it seems to be nothing to worry about. I just wanted to check it wasn't the result of a misconfiguration.

Chris.