Re: [cobalt-users] Sending email to AOL - timezone problem

[Mike Harris <ski@xxxxxxx>]

isn't the cdt daylight time and the cst standard time and they are an hour
different.....?

Ryan Gray wrote:

> Hello,
>         I've read threads in the archive that relate to this issue, but
> not any that have fixed it.  Also, I'm dealing with Gateway Microservers
> here, which to my understanding *are* Cobalt Cubes with the exception of
> the Gateway logo and the color.  I am posting this hear because I've seen
> the threads discussing this in the cobalt-users archive, but have seen no
> fixes.  This may be an OS issue, but I've got 7+ Cubes in this city alone
> that are having this issue, and I've never seen this issue with standard
> Linux installs.
>
> This is a bit long, but here it goes . . . .
>
> I've run into about 7 or 8 clients that have Gateway Microservers (Cobalt
> Cubes) and are unable to send mail to aol.com addresses.  I've spoken to
> the email admins at AOL and they inform me that their mail servers are not
> sending the mail because of a discrepancy in the header of the messages
> that are being sent from these Microservers.  Unfortunately, it took me a
> month to get to what the problem is because AOL doesn't bounce this type
> of problem, they just send it off to /dev/null or some other black hole.
> The problem is in the
> timestamp that's being placed on the mail.  Here's a header from the
> Microserver:
>
> Return-Path: <mblackburn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Received: from  mail.allpowerinc.com (mail.allpowerinc.com
> [207.177.63.199]) by
> rly-na03.mx.aol.com (v77.27) with ESMTP; Tue, 02 Jan 2001 11:26:02 -0500
> Received: from Mark ([192.9.200.153])
>         by mail.allpowerinc.com (8.9.2/8.9.2) with SMTP id LAA26331
>         for <BILLRPFD@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; Tue, 2 Jan 2001 11:25:04 -0600 (EST)
> Message-ID: <00ea01c074d8$e1aad0c0$99c809c0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> From: "Mark Blackburn" <mblackburn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> The problem is the "-0600 (EST)".  That doesn't exists.  Eastern Standard
> Time is -0500.  The time and date on the Microservers in question is
> correct from the command line.  In other words, issuing the 'date' command
> yields the correct time, date, year and time zone (in this case CST). I've
> even updated the time on the Microserver using NTP just to make sure.
>
> If you send mail from the console (from the command line), the timestamp
> is correct, and aol.com servers will process it.  However, if you send
> mail from a client machine on the network, using the Microserver as the
> SMTP server, the timestamp is incorrect, and aol.com's servers will not
> process the mail.
>
> I thought I could force Sendmail to a specific timezone using the "O
> TimeZoneSpec=" parameter.  Please note that by default on the
> Microservers, this is undefined, and with it undefined Sendmail is
> supposed to use the system default which is reporting correctly via the
> 'date' command.  I defined it and set it to CST6CDT.  This did not help.
> I could still send mail to aol.com from the command line, but not from a
> client using the Microserver as its SMTP server.
>
> I then started looking at the /usr/share/zoneinfo hierarchy.  This is
> where I found what I think to be the core of the problem.  A 'zdump
> /usr/share/zoneinfo/CST6CDT' yields the correct day, month, time, year,
> but not the correct time zone.  For example:
> ~# zdump /usr/share/zoneinfo/CST6CDT
> /usr/share/zoneinfo/CST6CDT  Fri Jan  5 10:40:16 2001 EST
>
> The Central Standard Time zone file is reporting EST!  I'm not sure how to
> proceed.
>
> If I can provide any more information, please let me know.  As far as
> reproducing this issue, that's no problem because there are a half dozen
> Microservers in this city alone that are doing the exact same thing.
>
> Regards,
> Ryan Gray
> Catalyst Solutions, Inc.
>
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