AOL has begun requiring that email servers support reverse DNS (returning a domain name for an ip address). Because of the nature of our hosting, using a shared ip, the servers did not return a domain, rather a machine name. AOL servers require that the server from which incoming mail is sent have a reverse DNS that returns a domain.
Over the past few days, you may have received an email from us explaining this issue. If not, generally, AOL has the ability to stop delivery of email to its customers from mail servers of which it chooses not to receive incoming communications.
Though we may not agree with the manner in which AOL conducts its email administration, all of our affected domains came into compliance with AOL?s requests as of approximately 6pm ET May 1st 2003.
Added September 4th, 2003
After being indexed by Google, this particular page has gotten many visitors, seeking the resolution to the aforementioned problem.
As a resolution, AOL doesn't care if you return a specific domain on the reverse DNS lookup, as long as it's one of the domains on the server. For instance, if I'm setting up a server that will host multiple domains, I would setup the server to bind reverse DNS lookup to the first domain I setup on that machine.
You can get results for almost any IP, DNS, Reverse DNS, WHOIS query at DNS Stuff, this is where I tested to verify that the reverse DNS on my mail server was returning a domain.
2003-05-02 01:20:17
Jason Hargett
Testimonial
Wonderful job...I'll definitely use this provider again.
