Hi,

This question is coming from a complete newbie,

We are going to launch a small email marketing company and will be setting up our bulk mailing servers. Our consultant is recommending few companies to get servers from but since I have been with Linode for sometime, I am personally a bit reluctant.

At the company called OVH, they are selling dedicated servers with "132 Maximum number of IPs routable on the server". What exactly this means ? Can we get anything similar here at linode ?

The whole idea is to make sure that each client gets his individual IP so if one client starts to spam via a campaign and before we block them, his actions shouldn't spoil IPs of other clients.

Can someone please point me in the right direction regarding this IP issue.

Thanks in advance.

IPv4 addresses are no longer readily available to network operators, so most reputable operators are not handing out IPv4 addresses without a valid technical justification, Linode included.

IPv6 addresses are much more plentiful, and Linode does supply pools of them for customer use, and they work great for communicating with networks on the IPv6 Internet. (This includes the inbound MX servers for a number of popular mail providers.)

H O W E V E R:

If you have to ask this question, you probably have not read Linode's terms of service in any great detail, particularly sections 3 and 7. If one of your Linodes is sending spam, from any of its IP addresses, then having multiple IP addresses will not help you. Linode isn't that dumb.

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So in other words, you're going to be a S P A M M E R

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Either provide enough details for people to help, or sit back and listen to the crickets chirp.
Security thru obscurity is a myth - and really really annoying.

Heard that enough ! Only if you can prove that companies like constantcontact, mailchimp are spammers.

You are not welcome replying to a thread I started if you can't stick to the topic and contribute positively.

ConstantContact are provably spammers. There is no way to unsubscribe from their mailings without a web browser, a keyboard, and knowledge of what e-mail address you were subscribed with.

MailChimp are probably not spammers, but they also do not launder IP addresses.

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you are right.

I hate spam, hate receiving content i never signed up for. It destroys the sole purpose and there is no logic working after deliverability when someone is just dumping email dbs and sending.

can you tell what exactly IP laundering is ?

I would define "IP laundering" as sending mail from a whole bunch of different IP addresses to avoid a negative reputation. It isn't a rigorously-defined thing (in fact, I just made it up), but the tactic makes me think of money laundering.

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But I did contribute positively, I helped define exactly what you're trying to do.

If you weren't a spammer (which FYI you mention in your own post that you are) then your spamming consultant wouldn't recommend having numerous IP's in order to bypass IP blacklisting (or Hoopycat's much cooler term IP Laundering™).

It's only because spamming has an almost zero cost (and equally low penalty for getting busted), that's it's measly hit rate of 0.001% is worth it for weasels to make everyone else's life hell in blocking them.

So the question is, are you so naive to think you're actually not a spammer, or are you just sugar coating your post thinking we're too stupid to see what you're actually trying to setup?

But hey, if you can't make a buck doing something you can be proud of, at least you're making a buck, right?

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Either provide enough details for people to help, or sit back and listen to the crickets chirp.
Security thru obscurity is a myth - and really really annoying.

Sadly, no one need your certificate of being a non spammer.

p.s your display pic couldn't represent you better !

To answer your original question:

1) Due to the scarcity of IP addresses, Linode is very judicious about dispensing them. There are very few reasons that they will give them out, and the reasons you've given are not one of them.

2) As one IP address being accused of spamming is enough to get an entire hosting provider put on spam blacklists, Linode has to be very careful of such things. If customers of yours sending out spam was happening multiple times, Linode would likely suspend your account entirely. They'll generally let it slide if it happens once and it's an accident (it happened to me when I misconfigured Squid and a spammer started using my linode to spam), but not if it's going to happen more than once.

3) I should reiterate that spam blacklists don't blacklist individual IP addresses when they detect spam. They blacklist at the minimum the /24 the IP address is in, and at maximum the entire IP range of the hosting provider.