Mail routing and MX records: trouble

[Barry Margolin]

In article <9r1i5q$661 at pub3.rc.vix.com>,
Steve Linberg  <slinberg at crocker.com> wrote:
>In article <9r1efn$5ln at pub3.rc.vix.com>,
> Simon Waters <Simon at wretched.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Steve Linberg wrote:
>> > 
>> > who bounce it because a reverse lookup of the
>> > sending domain "didn't work".
>> 
>> > Assuming it's not a DNS configuration error somewhere on their part, is
>> > there anything wrong with the above that I should fix?  Or is there more
>> > detail I could provide that would help diagnose the problem?
>> 
>> If you want us to help diagnose the problem the real domain and
>> IP address would be really helpful.
>
>Absolutely.  The IP is 205.246.6.15; the domain is literacytent.org, and 
>the subdomain running the MLM and being rejected by the handful of 
>domains (actuallly just two: ccsf.org and ccpsd.k12.va.us) is 
>lists.literacytent.org.  (I've also written to postmaster@ those 
>domains, no response so far.)

Your DNS looks pretty OK to me.  The only potentially problematic thing I
noticed is that your nameserver identifies itself as
shagrat.silicongoblin.com when I connect to its SMTP port, and I assume it
sends the same name in its HELO message when it's sending outbound mail.
This name resolves to your IP address properly, but the reverse DNS
resolves to linberg.crocker.com.

Servers aren't supposed to do this much checking of the HELO hostname,
precisely because of problems like this or because the server might be
multi-homed (so it has address A.A.A.A and B.B.B.B, makes a connection
whose source address is A.A.A.A, but the HELO contains a name that resolves
to B.B.B.B).  But some sites have enabled extremely paranoid checking on
their SMTP servers.

So try configuring your server to send "linberg.crocker.com" in its
greeting messages.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at genuity.net
Genuity, Woburn, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
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