[ale] Linux via mindspring to AOL -> blackhole

[Bob's ALE Mail]

> i.  I am running linux 2.0.29, sendmail 8.8.5, with mindspring as my
> ervice provider.  For the last several months, I have been unable to send
> mail to aol from my linux machine.  I have had no problems sending mail
> o any other isp providers; just aol (surprise).  I have seen in other
> ituations, that aol will bounce messages if the reverse dns look-up
> ails, so I'm pretty sure that isn't the problem as I do not receive any
> ounce messages, but the mail just does not go through.
> ..
> aurie Tynor
> btyno at mindspring.com

I too use mindspring.

The reverse DNS lookup problem is one of the two I have encountered
(besides mindspring occasionally changing their PPP packet sizes).

The other one is that my sendmail (and possibly yours) gets confused when
it does a DNS lookup and use the A name rather than the MX.

The solution, since I don't actually want to telnet to aol.com, is to do

	nslookup -type=any aol.com

to get a MX record ("mail exchanger") and put an entry in my /etc/hosts
file with a MX record's IP and "aol.com".  This also seems to be a problem
for bell south and a few others.

I also have an entry in the root crontab to watch for hung outgoing email
so I can add new entries, etc. as needed (delete the \ and following newlines):

	0  5 * * *	(cd /var/spool/mqueue;grep 'HTo:' q* /dev/null;\
	ls -l `grep -l 'HTo:' q*`) | mailx -s "Sendmail hung outbound" me \
	> /dev/null 2>&1

Naturally, the IP numbers will change occasionally.  The following section
of my /etc/hosts cures my problems:

#Give IP of domain's MX system, not regular one (because my sendmail is broken)
207.69.200.201		mindspring.com mindspring.com. mx1.mindspring.com
205.152.0.6		bellsouth.net bellsouth.net. mail1.bellsouth.net
198.7.0.2		panix.com panix.com. mailhost-l2.panix.com
141.215.69.3		umd.umich.edu tiamat.umd.umich.edu
#141.215.69.8		umd.umich.edu grazzt.umd.umich.edu
192.100.81.99		netcom.com mail.netcom.com
#192.100.81.142		netcom.com mail6.netcom.com
128.192.95.105		uga.edu arch5.cc.uga.edu
192.48.96.84		tnt1.tampa.fl.gt.uu.net

#Stuff that DNS is broken on
207.69.231.10		domain-relay.mspring.net
207.69.231.6		store-forward.mspring.net
207.69.231.3		HEARSAY.mspring.net hearsay.mspring.net
207.69.231.2		SPEAKEASY.mspring.net speakeasy.mspring.net
156.80.3.3		bah.com
205.180.58.231		www.geocities.com
206.86.247.157		www.tonic.to
204.122.16.5		www.eskimo.com
152.163.199.65  	users.aol.com
152.163.199.22  	members.aol.com
#207.68.156.53		www.microsoft.com
165.113.13.15		www.crl.com
209.86.119.150		www.ale.org
129.237.33.3		kuhttp.cc.ukans.edu
128.138.243.10		www.cs.colorado.edu
204.162.96.10		guide.infoseek.com
#Special hack for brain-damaged aol: IP is of b.mr.aol.com
198.81.19.82		aol.com b.mr.aol.com
149.60.26.1		rocket.com
205.180.57.82		rocketmail.com
205.180.57.73		mta3.rocketmail.com
192.100.81.114		netcom.com
149.174.207.12		compuserve.com
199.0.65.251		smtp-mx-1.tiac.net
199.3.129.159		daisy.tiac.net
205.152.0.5		ns.bellsouth.net
205.152.0.6		mail1.bellsouth.net
205.152.16.6		mail2.bellsouth.net
205.152.32.6		mail3.bellsouth.net
205.152.0.4		mail4.bellsouth.net
205.252.144.212		netvigator.com
209.94.0.2		inetnow.net