[cobalt-users] AOL Weirdness - Returned Mail *Sometimes* as Host Unknown

[David <thebizworkers@xxxxxxxxx>]

Greets,

I just saw the post regarding AOL/DNS strangeness, and
found it ironic that I was just sitting down to ask
the list about something similar regarding an error
people sometimes recv' when sending to users on my
RaQ4 -but ONLY from AOL. I've recv'd a -few-
complaints over the last 3-5 months (maybe 3-4
complaints) from a few of my users on the RaQ4
(actually a RaQ3 with the RaQ4 OS) -but
every-now-and-then when someone from an AOL account
tries to send mail to the user on the RaQ, the mail
bounces back to the AOL sender with the following DNS
(RFC822) error -as host unknown. I had it happen just
today;

   ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal
errors -----
<support@xxxxxxxxxx>

   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
550 <support@xxxxxxxxxx>... Host unknown (Name server:
www.domain.com.: host not found)

Final-Recipient: RFC822; support@xxxxxxxxxx
Action: failed
Status: 5.1.2
Remote-MTA: DNS; www.domain.com
Last-Attempt-Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 18:11:31 -0500
(EST)

Received: from sender@xxxxxxx
    by imo-d06.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v34.13.) id
v.a.2b1c7beb (4116)
     for <support@xxxxxxxxxx>; Thu, 9 Jan 2003
18:09:21 -0500 (EST)
Return-path: <sender@xxxxxxx>
From: sender@xxxxxxx
Message-ID: <a.2b1c7beb.2b4f5b21@xxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 18:09:21 EST
Subject: AOL Mail Returned
To: support@xxxxxxxxxx
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Mailer: AOL 5.0 for Windows sub 139

--------------
The RaQ is stock, not so much as even anti-virus,
mailscanner, no PHP running, no mySQL -notta.. The
domain(s) all have proper DNS, the setup for the
host(s) in question are configured correctly in the
GUI.

Host Name:		www
Domain Name:		domain.com
Web Server Aliases:	domain.com
Email Server Aliases:	domain.com

A records are setup for both with and without www. and
pointing to the correct IP addy, same for MX records
(both with and without www). The only software
installed on the box besides official Cobalt/SUN
patches is Solarspeed's BIND 8.3.4 and their Qpopper 4
which both work fine and without problem -oh and
pkgmaster's SSH and Webalizer. One change I did make
to the named.conf file is as follows to stop
recursion:

acl "internal" {
        127.0.0.1; IP1; IP2; IP3; IP4;
};

acl "slaves" {
        SLAVE-IP;
};

options {
        directory "/etc/named";
        allow-recursion { "internal"; };
        allow-transfer { "slaves"; "internal"; };
        use-id-pool yes;
        version "Not Specified";
};

logging {
        category lame-servers { null; };
}; 

I've been using RaQ's for 2-3 years now and never had
this issue until I updated to the RaQ4 OS -but
personally, I think it's more of an AOL issue because
it ONLY happens with senders from AOL, and then only
once in a blue-moon. The lady who sent me the above
error today (from a returned message she sent 5 mins
prior) -turned right around from here same AOL account
5 mins after recv'ing the bounce, and sent it right
back to me again, this time without incident. 

Originally I thought maybe it was something goofy with
the BIND update, though I couldn't see/figure-out
what, but again, no other ISP is having this
occasional problem (god knows I get enough UCE pass
through my system from AOL).. I did update my BIND
cache as to update the J-root server (which I thought
might have orgianlly been the problem) -but that was
months ago -so all was (is) good with DNS.. I really
don't think it's a BIND issue with the RaQ (either),
because the domain/host not found in today's issue is
housed on the RaQ4, but it's DNS is being served off a
OpenNA box running the latest version of BIND 9.x.x
and it's crystal clean (setup by the guy who built the
OpenNA OS himself).. 

So what gives with AOL and this occasional error..? 
I've spent the last 4 hours digging around Google and
Sendmail trying to find something to nail this down,
but NOTHING.. There's hundreds of these error messages
archived in Google from AOL senders to various hosts
around the net, but I can't figure out what's going on
to create this issue.. Does anyone have any ideas or
suggestions..?


Thanks
David



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