Apex Mail and spam

Question

Hi all,
I've created a bulk email screen in my app. so the users can email their contacts. Some email providers accept the mail no problem but others treat it as spam, I'm assuming that is because it is validating the From: address (which is a valid address) as not originating from the correct server? If I just send to one Yahoo address as a test, it will treat it as spam, so it isn't the volume of addresses causing the problem.
How do I make the recipient's mail servers treat the messages as trustworthy? Do I need to set up one account that Apex can use for the From: address?
regards,
Malcolm.

Answer 1

Hi Malcolm,
You only need a local send mail if you plan to use APEX_MAIL which uses your local mail queue, but you don't use sendmail for UTL_SMTP. UTL_SMTP creates its own TCP connection with the destination server.
I extracted one example procedure from the documentation page I linked above:
PROCEDURE send_email(
pFromUser IN VARCHAR2,
pToUser IN VARCHAR2,
pSubject IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT NULL,
pBody IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT NULL) IS
conn          UTL_SMTP.CONNECTION;
crlf         VARCHAR2(2):= CHR(13) || CHR(10);
EmailServer   VARCHAR2(60); := 'smtp.mlib.org';
mesg          VARCHAR2(4000) := 'Hello World';
pwd           VARCHAR2(200) := 'sEcReT';
SenderAddress VARCHAR2(200) := '<[email protected]>';
SenderName    VARCHAR2(50)  := 'damorgan11g';
pToList       VARCHAR2(4000);
vToReceivers  VARCHAR2(200);
uname         VARCHAR2(200);
BEGIN
  conn:= utl_smtp.open_connection(EmailServer, 25);
  utl_smtp.ehlo(conn, EmailServer);
  --utl_smtp.helo( conn, EmailServer );
  utl_smtp.command(conn, 'AUTH LOGIN');
  utl_smtp.command(conn, utl_raw.cast_to_varchar2(
    utl_encode.base64_encode( utl_raw.cast_to_raw(uname))));
  utl_smtp.command(conn, utl_raw.cast_to_varchar2(
    utl_encode.base64_encode( utl_raw.cast_to_raw(pwd))));
  utl_smtp.mail(conn, SenderAddress);
  utl_smtp.rcpt(conn, pToList);
  mesg:= 'Date: '|| TO_CHAR(SYSDATE, 'DD MON RR HH24:MI:SS' )|| crlf ||
         'From: "' || SenderName || '" ' || SenderAddress || crlf ||
         'Subject: ' || pSubject || crlf ||
         'To: '|| pToList || crlf||
         pBody || crlf || crlf;
  utl_smtp.data(conn, mesg);
  utl_smtp.quit(conn);
EXCEPTION
  WHEN OTHERS THEN
    RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR(-20001,SQLERRM);
END;
/As you see, the procedure connects to the server, requests the AUTH LOGIN and provides username and password, before it starts to actually create the mail on the server.
Hope this helps clarifying that issue. If it didn't, don't stop asking. ;)
-Udo