Re: [cobalt-users] Can't stop external email forwarding

[Dale Taylor <bipandbap@xxxxxxxxx>]

Original stupid question: "Nothing I do stops ALL mail sent to 
ourdomain.com from being forward to our original sign-up email 
joe@xxxxxxx"

Thanks for the valuable suggestions, this list is the greatest. The 
solution to the problem was quite a conundrum. At what point in the 
following explanation can you figure out what went wrong? In the end, 
I'm still the idiot, just not the idiot you think I am.

I currently have a FreeBSD virtual server and I'm in the process of 
migrating to a Raq4i. I had previously virtually hosted 
problemdomain.com on the FreeBSD vserver.  I moved problemdomain.com 
to the Raq4i as the MAIN domain on the raq.  Presently, I still use 
the smtp of my FreeBSD vserver to send out mail (however I use my 
yahoo address for mailing list).  While subhosting problemdomain.com 
on the FreeBSD vserver, a catch-all was set-up to be forwarded to 
joe@xxxxxxxx

Now when we signed up for our Raq4i, this SAME aol.com address was 
used as the catch-all/forwarding email account. Earlier this week the 
trouble began as I started adding users to the raq account.  I could 
check the POP accounts, but all mail I sent was STILL being forwarded 
to joe@xxxxxxx to my hair-pulling frustration.  I checked everywhere, 
every configuration file, grepped for .forwards and the aol.com 
address -- nothing turned up. I read and re-read the manual and this 
archive -- no one had ever had this problem. You've probably guessed 
the trouble by now.

While I had changed the nameservers at my registrar, because I'm 
planning on cancelling my FreeBSD account when the migration is done, 
I didn't bother to delete the virtual hosting for problemdomain.com 
on the FreeBSD vserver.  It didn't dawn on me until I discovered 
dale@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx WAS working. Now how could an alias act 
differently? A DNS mix-up somewhere. Crossing off the list of 
possibilities the answer dawned on me -- I was living in my own 
personal DNS hell.  Since I'm still sending mail out via the smtp 
FreeBSD server, it was/is acting as the host of problemdomain.com if 
given the opportunity. It obediently forwarded all mail to the 
catch-all joe@xxxxxxx as instructed in configuration files never 
bothering to consult the external DNS records. So in the end there 
never was a real problem. The user accounts were ALWAYS working to 
the outside, just not in my own self-created DNS hell.

-dale





_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com