[Techtalk] List issue...user unknown

Mary Gardiner linuxchix at puzzling.org
Thu Aug 9 08:43:50 EST 2001


On Thu, Aug 09, 2001 at 07:34:42AM +1000, jenn at simegen.com wrote:
> Well, if linuxchix.simegen.com is working, linuxchix.org (if it points to 
> linuxchix.simegen.com) should be working - it's a server alias. So either
> mailman is doing something funky/silly, or we've screwed up the server
> aliasing somehow. 

Here's what I see:

The A record for linuxchix.org DNS points to:
203.7.155.11
which reverse resolves to
gw.simegen.com

which would be Jenn's machine. Fine so far.

However, the MX (mail exchange - the hosts designated to handle linuxchix.org
mail) record is:

linuxchix.org           MX      20 mail.trends.ca
linuxchix.org           MX      0 mail.linuxchix.org
!!! linuxchix.org MX host mail.linuxchix.org does not exist
linuxchix.org           MX      10 mail.hub.org

mail.trends.ca is a Canadian machine, judging from the TLD, and mail.hub.org
is the machine associated with the people Deb was originally using to run the
site. probably not Jenn's machines then.

The host with the highest priority (which is the lowest number - it is the
host to which delivery will first be attempted), mail.linuxchix.org, has *no*
associated IP address.

First possible conclusion: mail.trends.ca and mail.hub.org are the kind of
mail exchangers who will accept mail for linuxchix.org to stop it bouncing,
but will then hold it waiting for the primary mail exchanger to come back up -
which won't happen until there is a record matching mail.linuxchix.org

Provisos: I am no expert on DNS - to the point where almost all of my
knowledge is folklore (ie I picked it up from other people, not from any
official source) - but I know from bitter recent experience that a mail
exchanger that doesn't resolve is a bad sign :)

Mary.

-- 
Mary Gardiner
<mary at puzzling.org>
GPG Key ID: 77625870 (wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net)




More information about the Techtalk mailing list