[Techtalk] dns issue

[Susan Spencer]

There's a configuration problem:
Using NSLOOKUP:
1. mail.shadlen.org resolves to <your mail ip address> and <your mail
ip address> resolves to mail.shadlen.org which is good.
2. www.shadlen.org resolves to <your www ip address> yet <your www ip
address> resolves to smtp.shadlen.org which is bad.

There's a bit of a problem here, so log a trouble ticket with the
helpdesk. It's not your settings.

Tell them:
1. you're getting non-authoritative responses for DNS lookups
2.< your www ip address> resolves to smtp.shadlen.org , it should
resolve to www.shadlen.org
3. your emails aren't routable --> give them the exact error message

To give you idea of the area where there's a problem, here's a section
from "Oversimplified DNS" at http://rscott.org/dns/mx.html:

"Step 5b: Check your MX records
[If you have MX records for more than one domain, such as
"example.com" and "ihostforthem.example.com", you will need to repeat
steps 5b and 5c once for every domain with MX records]

First, make sure that all the MX records for your domain point to a
domain name (IE, "example.com MX 10 mail.example.com"). Next, make
sure that all the mail server names from the MX records have a
corresponding A record. You can check the A record as described in
Step 4a. For example, if you have "example.com MX 10
mail.example.com", you must also have a record such as
"mail.example.com A 10.11.12.15" (unless the mail server isn't in your
domain, such as "example.com MX 10 mail.myisp.com" -- but if so,
myisp.com must have an A record for mail.myisp.com).

Problem? Your MX records MUST NOT point to a CNAME record. For
example, "example.com MX 10 mail.example.com" can not have a
corresponding record "mail.example.com CNAME smtp.example.com".

Problem? Your MX records MUST NOT point to an IP address. If so, mail
servers probably will not deliver mail to you!"





- Susan

On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 6:00 AM,  <techtalk-request at linuxchix.org> wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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>   1. dns issue (Maria McKinley)
>   2. Re: dns issue (Maria McKinley)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:29:47 -0800
> From: Maria McKinley <maria at shadlen.org>
> To: 'Techtalk' <techtalk at linuxchix.org>
> Subject: [Techtalk] dns issue
> Message-ID: <4F0DFF4B.10305 at shadlen.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Hello,
>
> Up until this morning, my dns worked fine (for years and years), but
> today I am getting mail failures with this error:
>
> Technical details of permanent failure:
> Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the
> recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for
> further information about the cause of this error. The error that the
> other server returned was: 550 550 unrouteable address (state 14).
>
> It appears to not make it to my server at all.
>
> When I look up my dns on http://digwebinterface.com/, I get:
>
> dns.shadlen.org at dns.shadlen.org.:
> /usr/bin/dig: couldn't get address for 'dns.shadlen.org.': failure
>
> which seems a little circular. Any idea what could have changed (I
> didn't change anything, and my domain service seems to be working fine)?
>
> If you could cc this address in your reply, that would be helpful, since
> email doesn't seem to be making it to my shadlen acoount...
>
> parody at u.washington.edu
>
> thanks,
> maria
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:33:26 -0800
> From: Maria McKinley <maria at shadlen.org>
> To: 'Techtalk' <techtalk at linuxchix.org>
> Subject: Re: [Techtalk] dns issue
> Message-ID: <4F0E0026.3030307 at shadlen.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> On 1/11/12 1:29 PM, Maria McKinley wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> Up until this morning, my dns worked fine (for years and years), but
>> today I am getting mail failures with this error:
>>
>> Technical details of permanent failure:
>> Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the
>> recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for
>> further information about the cause of this error. The error that the
>> other server returned was: 550 550 unrouteable address (state 14).
>>
>> It appears to not make it to my server at all.
>>
>> When I look up my dns on http://digwebinterface.com/, I get:
>>
>> dns.shadlen.org at dns.shadlen.org.:
>> /usr/bin/dig: couldn't get address for 'dns.shadlen.org.': failure
>>
>> which seems a little circular. Any idea what could have changed (I
>> didn't change anything, and my domain service seems to be working fine)?
>>
>> If you could cc this address in your reply, that would be helpful, since
>> email doesn't seem to be making it to my shadlen acoount...
>>
>> parody at u.washington.edu
>>
>> thanks,
>> maria
>
> Sorry, hit send to soon. The answer above is if I ask for the
> authoritative nameserver, if I ask for Resolver (default), it gives me
> an answer, but it is the wrong ip, and I don't know how it got this
> other number. Any ideas? It appears to be another ip at my university,
> so maybe my university did something weird?
>
> thanks,
> maria
>
>
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