BuddyPress.org

I think I resolved the issue. The issue was that only users that are on GMAIL receive new user activation email upon joining my buddypress powered site. Users in other email domains were not receiving user activation emails. I am running my own VPS based host, essentailly I own the server with public IP that is running WP and BP, so I think this situation might apply to others, hence this post. I am hoping this could help others with similar email issues.

Here are the of my install:

1. WordPress version 3.3.1
2. WordPress installed as directory
3. WordPress installed in root
4. Fresh Install
5. Fresh install of BP version 1.5.4 define( ‘BP_ENABLE_MULTIBLOG’, true);
6. Running LEMP server (CentOS 5.8+Nginx +MySQL+PHP)

7. Started troubleshooting by checking sendmail logs:
cat /var/spool/mail/nginx

8. Observed following error messages:

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The following addresses had permanent fatal errors

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(reason: 554 Denied [SHXBL] – Denied by Spamhaus XBL – See http://www.spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=my.host.ip.add (Mode: normal))

9. Followed link provided to spamhaus which presented me with:

my.host.ip.add is listed in the XBL, because it appears in:

CBL (link to CBL)

10. Followed CBL Link to read:
“This IP address is HELO’ing as “localhost.localdomain” which violates the relevant standards (specifically: RFC5321)”

11. Followed link provided to http://cbl.abuseat.org/namingproblems.html
the gist of which is:
“There are two basic types of detections that land an IP in this page. RFC2821 section 4.1.1.1 says that there are only two legal types of HELO/EHLO a mail server can issue – either a fully qualified domain name (eg: “mail.example.com”) or an “IP literal” (eg: “[1.2.3.4]”).”

12. Followed instructions to fix link for UNIX system (also there is a link for Windows) to http://cbl.abuseat.org/sendmailhelp.html

13. completed fix to sendmail.cf file, I chose to respond to HELO as [my.host.ip.add] fashion and completed sendmail restart.

14. you will now need to delist your domain from CBL – go back to CBL link (it will complain about timestamp, so might have to do it through spamhaus link) and at the bottom of the page there should be link to request de-listing. Click and wait 1-2 hours

14. I tested again, by sending registration email from my BP install (signed up new user) to check how the email header is received now, here is a comparison for before and after. Then fix was confirmed working as registration email came through to another email domain

Before:
Received: from localhost.localdomain ([my.host.ip.add])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id e70si6268183yhk.134.2012.03.30.09.16.56;
Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:16:56 -0700 (PDT)

After:
Received: from [my.host.ip.add] ([my.host.ip.add])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id n5si4532434614yhm.135.2012.03.30.11.24.59;
Fri, 30 Mar 2012 11:24:59 -0700 (PDT)