I'm a linux engineer, so I don't post unless I can't figure things out.
all mail sending is getting this in the /var/log/maillog :
Aug 24 03:03:02 srv1 send: delivery 9: deferral: Sorry,_I_wasn't_able_to_establish_an_SMTP_connection._(#4.4.1)/
Aug 24 03:03:02 srv1 send: status: local 0/10 remote 1/60
Aug 24 03:03:02 srv1 send: delivery 10: deferral: Sorry,_I_wasn't_able_to_establish_an_SMTP_connection._(#4.4.1)/
Aug 24 03:03:02 srv1 send: status: local 0/10 remote 0/60
I couldn't figure out why an smtp connection can't be established, tried to telnet manually to the servers I'm trying to send to, and it works fine, so no firewall issue between the server, and the recipient smtp servers.
then, I figured out, its not even trying. I ran a packet capture on the firewall between this server, and the internet. full packet capture.
here is a summary of what I saw, I can attach the capture if you want to see it.
1)my mail client connects to server, sends email over smtp-ssl
2)qmail receives the mail, and does some name server querying of the ip address the sender is using, but does no querying on the recipients domain/mail server, I saw no query for an mx record, or anything.
with that information I suspected spamdyke, so I used kloxo-mr to whitelist my sending ip, so spamdyke would ignore it.
result is, I see a lot fewer queries for my mail client, 1 actually that I can find in this large dump file
(which on my home network, resolves to x.x.x.x.in-addr.arpa PTR x-x-x-x.fidanet.com)
I see the dns queries for my personal gmail account mx record, and my account on another private server I have access to its smtp log files.
no smtp connection was even attempted to either server. I think something is broken in implementation, or combination of communication between spamdyke, and qmail smtp, it defers rather than actually attempting to try an smtp connection to send the mail.
I can provide remote access if you would like to login and check it out.