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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical RE: Fun new policy at AOL
Does the IP address of your client's SMTP server have a reverse DNS entry (PTR record) assigned to it? It seems to be a new "best practice" to not accept e-mail from an IP address that doesn't have a PTR record assigned. Furthermore, if those PTR records indicate anything like "dial" "dns" "cable" then more 'strict' policies tend to reject them. If you can't get your upstream to modify the PTR records to your specifications (or delegate the block to you) then another way around this would be to configure your client's SMTP server to forward to the provider's "smart host" (e.g. a SMTP relay server with a known address and appropriate PTR record configured to accept relay traffic from customer IP's). Not the most elegant but a serviceable workaround none the less. HTH Ben ~~~~~~~~~~ R. Benjamin Kessler Network Engineer CCIE #8762, CISSP, CCSE Kessler Consulting Email: [email protected] http://www.kesslerconsulting.com Phone: 260-625-3273 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Susan Zeigler Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 2:35 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Fun new policy at AOL Sometime mid last week, one of my clients--a state chapter of a national association--became unable to send to all of their AOL members. Assuming it was simply that AOLs servers were inundated with infected emails, I gave it some time. The errors were simply "delay" and "not delivered in time specified" errors. Well, it was still going on today. So, I went on site and upped the logging on the server. What to my surprise did appear but a nice little message informing us that "I'm sorry, your IP is dynamically assigned and aol doesn't accept dynamic IPs. WTF. This IP is NOT dynamic. The client has had it for about two years. I just looked on their website to file a complaint and ask how they determined what was dynamic and what was static and couldn't find a contact email address. I did find the following statement: "AOL's mail servers will not accept connections from systems that use dynamically assigned IP addresses." It was on the following page: http://postmaster.info.aol.com/standards.html So, since I know someone from AOL does lurk on this list, what's my recourse. Feel free to email me offlist. Thanks. On a side note, my client is also curious who's going to help pay the bill that they shouldn't have needed to pay me due to AOL changing policy and blocking them needlessly. Unless AOL is downloading the entire routing pools from all ISPs on a daily basis, how do they know which IPs are dynamic and which are static;) And, since static IPs can actually be assigned out of a DHCP pool as well, even that won't work. -- -- -- -Susan -- Susan Zeigler | Technical Services [email protected] | Spindustry Systems 515.225.0920 | "You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong." -- Abraham Lincoln **************************************************************** Spindustry Systems, Inc. DES MOINES / CHICAGO / INDIANAPOLIS / DENVER CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure, or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message including any attachments.
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