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Reverse DNS & AOL Rejecting my Emails

T

thumbsucker

Guest
Hi,

I have a dedicated server and received 3 IP addresses.

I have 6-7 domains all sharing 2 of the IP addresses.

My PLESK DNS entries look like the following for each domain:

mydomain.com. NS ns1.mydomaincom.
mydomain.com. NS ns2.mydomain.com.
mydomain.com. A 11.22.33.44
webmail.mydomain.com. A 11.22.33.44
mail.mydomain.com. A 11.22.33.44
ftp.mydomain.com. CNAME mydomain.com.
www.mydomaincom. CNAME mydomain.com.
*.mydomain.com. CNAME mydomain.com.
mydomain.com. MX (10) mail.mydomain.com.
mydomain.com. TXT "v=spf1 a mx ~all"

All emails to AOL are rejected saying I do not have a Reverse DNS entry.

All emails to Yahoo are being sent to the SPAM folder.

What can I do to set up a Reverse DNS entry?

Would adding:

11.22.33.44 / 24 PTR mydomain.com be enough?

Thanks!
 
I'll added the PTR entry and will wait until it propogates.

I hope this fixes my emails being sent to the SPAM folders on Yahoo as well. :(
 
Usually your ISP or upstream provider (whoever you get your external IP from) will need to add the hostname of your server in their reverse dns server, it's usually not something you can change. I've never had a problem getting it done.
 
It appears you're right.

I noticed I have PTR entries for all of my other domain names and none of those function properly in regards to various ISPs (e.g. Verizon rejects emails altogether as does AOL; Yahoo and Hotmail send all my emails to SPAM).

No wonder my business has gone to **** recently. Nobody is getting my emails. :(
 
What can be done if there are multiple domains needing proper reverse dns on the server?
 
You only need one rDNS entry per used IP. And by used IP, I mean used to send email. This is usually the first IP on the highest numbered ethernet adapter, I think.

So you only need rDNS set up on one IP (your first IP usually). And that rDNS entry does not have to match any domain name hosted on your server, though it is always a good idea for it to do so!

For example, most of our domains are on an ip ending in .233, but the first IP on our server is .somethingelse and this IP is used to send email. As long as you have rDNS on that IP you are OK. We have the hostname of the server matching the rDNS entry, and also have a domain in Plesk that matches the hostname of the server. This makes things neat and tidy.

Faris.
 
Hi thanks for that info. My reverse DNS works fine (the IP reverses to the server name set by host) but emails to AOL bounce.

If I try to get AOL to accept my domain I get the following error

Your Dynamic Whitelist request, with the confirmation code 1147477607-058317,
has been denied.

Your request has been denied because the IP address(es) you have entered do(es)
not have proper reverse DNS established or do(es) not follow AOL guidelines.
Please review the DNS guidelines here:
http://postmaster-us.info.aol.com/info/rdns.html

Please update the reverse DNS of your IP address(es) to reflect your domain
name(s) and resubmit your request once the change has propagated to our system.
You can check your reverse DNS on the AOL Postmaster web site at:
http://postmaster-us.info.aol.com/tools/rdns.html

For more information on this request, please visit our website at
http://postmaster-us.info.aol.com or call the AOL Postmaster Helpdesk at
1-888-212-5537.

Thank You,
AOL Postmaster


So does this mean that AOL want an exact match domain/reverse dns?
 
I would say definitely not. This is what the first link says:

AOL does require that all connecting Mail Transfer Agents have established reverse DNS, ***regardless of whether it matches the domain***.

On the other page it is more specific:
*******************
If the sender's domain is the only domain sending mail from a specific IP address, we recommend that the reverse DNS entry (PTR Record) match the domain name (A Record), but we do not require it.

AOL does require that all connecting Mail Transfer Agents have established reverse DNS, regardless of whether it matches the domain.

Reverse DNS must be in the form of a fully-qualified domain name. Reverse DNSes containing in-addr.arpa are not acceptable, as these are merely placeholders for a valid PTR record. Reverse DNSes consisting only of IP addresses are also not acceptable, as they do not correctly establish the relationship between domain and IP address.
***************


Have you used the second link to test your IPs? This is the crucial thing.

Faris.
 
Hi,

When I originally started troubleshooting the problem I used the second link to check reverse DNS. It has always returned OK.

I have changed my hostname to the same as a domain on the server and will see what happens when it has replicated.

I get the same problems with AIM and Yahoo but I imagine one fix will cure the lot.
 
You know what is really frustrating though? When you email AOL with a question or ask for help, it just gets ignored.

I guess they don't care if their customers get email or not, as long as they get as little spam as possible. This is not really sensible.

Of course on the other hand I bet they get a lot of silly questions, but still -- some of them must surely deserve an answer, like your situation.

I hear that if you actually call them they will help you. But I don't remember who told me that, nor what number you would call.

Faris.
 
AOL Contact Info

I have three numbers for AOL, and they are pretty useless, they try not to offer any help so you have to really try nicely to get it out of them.. But yes, it is way way easier to get help by calling then emailing them..


AOL
888-212-5537
AOL
800-827-6364
AOL Security (that's a joke)
800-307-7969


Someone mentioned at DNSSTUFF.com using their rDNS look up tool and it was very handy to me in resolving my AOL problems.. but I still have a rDNS problem in sending to email on craigslist.com.. any idea anyone?
 
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