Re: Problem with MX record

[Danny Sauer <sauer@cloudmaster.com>]

Blunier, Mark wrote:
> I've been having problems sending email to my folks email account.
> about 90% of them bounce back.  Their normal account is at ocslink.com.
> If they use the webmail thingy, the reply to address is at mail.ocslink.com.
> Email bounces 90% of the time for mail from both addresses.  Depending
> on who I talk to at ocslink.com (a5.net), they say both work, or only
> use the ocslink.com (but don't seem to believe that there webmail puts
> the mail.ocslink.com in the reply to field.  Anyway, my ISP says the
> problem is that ocslink.com and mail.ocslink.com does not have an MX
> record.  I checked at work, and mail.ocslink.com does not seem to have
> an MX record, but ocslink.com and a5.com does (but I can't seem to send
> email to them from work either).  They also have been bounced off several
> mailing lists.  Ocasionally an email makes it though saying they've been
> bounced off the lists.
> 
> How long does it take for MX records to propagate?  This has been going
> on for over a month.  Does everyone else get an MX record for ocslink.com,
> or is it just a few ISPs.

The domains work for me (on my work DNS server), the mail.domain doesn't 
(but SMTP oughtta use the MX for the domain if the host has no MX, 
right?  Right.).

dsauer@danny-pc:~> host -t MX ocslink.com
ocslink.com mail is handled by 100 ocslink.com.a5.mail1.psmtp.com.
ocslink.com mail is handled by 200 ocslink.com.a5.mail2.psmtp.com.
ocslink.com mail is handled by 300 ocslink.com.a5.mail3.psmtp.com.
ocslink.com mail is handled by 400 ocslink.com.a5.mail4.psmtp.com.
dsauer@danny-pc:~> host -t MX mail.ocslink.com
dsauer@danny-pc:~> host -t MX a5.com
a5.com mail is handled by 400 a5.com.a5.mail4.psmtp.com.
a5.com mail is handled by 100 a5.com.a5.mail1.psmtp.com.
a5.com mail is handled by 200 a5.com.a5.mail2.psmtp.com.
a5.com mail is handled by 300 a5.com.a5.mail3.psmtp.com.

Prorogation time shouldn't be too long - it looks like the expire 
interval is 604800 seconds, which is one week.  If their serial number 
scheme is logical, they last updated Jan 7, 2004, which should've 
propagated by now. (BTW, the SOA order should be host, email, serial 
number, refresh interval, retry interval, expire interval, minimum ttl)

dsauer@danny-pc:~> host -C ocslink.com
Nameserver ns1.allianceit.net:
         ocslink.com SOA ns1.allianceit.net. hostmaster.allianceit.net. 
2004010701 10800 3600 604800 7200
Nameserver ns2.allianceit.net:
         ocslink.com SOA ns1.allianceit.net. hostmaster.allianceit.net. 
2004010701 10800 3600 604800 7200

I'd bet that they're blacklisted by something that your ISP's using, or 
something like that.  I'd ask why they're filtering outgoing mail 
domains, but I guess they've probably got a reason...  It's weird that 
a5's not hosting their own email, too, but I guess ISPs don't have to be 
full ISPs anymore anyway.

--Danny, wondering why he can't have host convert seconds into hours or 
days automagically... :)

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