Who is responsible for RDNS

[bubarooni]

I have a really aggravating situation occurring.

My ISP is AT&T. My corporate website is hosted by a third party who is responsible for my domain registration and management. I host my own email server at our main corporate location.

I have email users who try to send email to certain domains (AOL is one) and the email is rejected due to a lack of a RDNS entry.

AT&T says they can't do it. My web hosting service (who is responsible for my domain registration and setup the mx record for my internal email server) says they can't do it.

I don't know how to do it. Who's job is it and how do I get them to do so?

Thanks In Advance

 

[lhuegele]

Your ISP is the one who would set-up the reverse DNS entry for your mail server. Assuming that you have a business account with AT&T and assigned fixed IP addresses from them, they would be the ones to set-up your reverse DNS for your mail server.

Push them again, it is their responsibility as the owner of your external IP addresses.

 

[GotNoClue]

I'm not sure I agree with that the ISP is responsible. You mentioned that the hosting service setup the MX record for your mail server. This tells me that the hosting service (also the register, in your case) is the entity hosting the authoritative name server. This would also be the server resposible for reverse DNS.

You can identify who this is by running a whois search (

http://whois.domaintools.com/)

and looking for the DNS servers. Also, you can test the presence of an RDNS by typing "ping -a mailserverIP" at a command prompt where mailserverIP is the external IP address of the mail server (this is the same IP as used in the MX record). If the server name is returned, RDNS is setup and working.

 

[lhuegele]

Although the web host is where you have your forward facing DNS entries (such as the MX record), they are not the authority responsible for the IP address your MX record points to.

In most cases, your web host will handle your forward zones, and your ISP would handle your reverse zones. That's been my experience anyway.

Good luck,

 

[bubarooni]

i changed just my ip and domain, but how 'bout this:

mail.mydomain.com is not an IP address, so I am using x.x.x.x (the A record for mail.mydomain.com).

Location: United States [City: Middletown, New Jersey]

Preparation:
The reverse DNS entry for an IP is found by reversing the IP, adding it to "in-addr.arpa", and looking up the PTR record.
So, the reverse DNS entry for x.x.x.x is found by looking up the PTR record for
x.x.x.x.in-addr.arpa.
All DNS requests start by asking the root servers, and they let us know what to do next.
See How Reverse DNS Lookups Work for more information.

How I am searching:
Asking f.root-servers.net for x.x.x.x.in-addr.arpa PTR record:
f.root-servers.net says to go to cbru.br.ns.els-gms.att.net. (zone: x.in-addr.arpa.)
Asking cbru.br.ns.els-gms.att.net. for x.x.x.x.in-addr.arpa PTR record: Got CNAME referral to x.x/x.x.x.x.in-addr.arpa. at server ns.fbsm.com. (zone x/x.x.x.x.in-addr.arpa.) [from 199.191.128.105]
Asking b.root-servers.net for x.x/x.x.x.x.in-addr.arpa. PTR record:
b.root-servers.net [192.228.79.201] says to go to DMTU.MT.NS.ELS-GMS.ATT.NET. (zone: x.in-addr.arpa.)
Asking DMTU.MT.NS.ELS-GMS.ATT.NET. for x.x/x.x.x.x.in-addr.arpa. PTR record:
dmtu.mt.ns.els-gms.att.net [12.127.16.70] says to go to ns.fbsm.com. (zone: x/x.x.x.x.in-addr.arpa.)
Asking ns.fbsm.com. for x.x/x.x.x.x.in-addr.arpa. PTR record: Reports that no PTR records exist [from 208.138.121.1].

Answer:
No PTR records exist for x.x.x.x. [Neg TTL=7200 seconds]

Details:
ns.fbsm.com. (an authoritative nameserver for x.x.x.in-addr.arpa., which is in charge of the reverse DNS for x.x.x.x)
says that there are no PTR records for x.x.x.x.

To get reverse DNS set up for x.x.x.x, you need to speak to your Internet provider. You could also
check with hostmaster@fbsm.com., who is in charge of the x.x.x.in-addr.arpa. zone.

Note that all Internet accessible hosts are expected to have a reverse DNS entry (per RFC1912 2.1),
and many mailservers (such as AOL) will likely block E-mail from mailservers with no reverse DNS entry.
To see the reverse DNS traversal, to make sure that all DNS servers are reporting the correct results, you can Click Here


ESPECIALLY:
To get reverse DNS set up for x.x.x.x, you need to speak to your Internet provider. You could also
check with hostmaster@fbsm.com., who is in charge of the x.x.x.in-addr.arpa. zone.

 

[bubarooni]

AT&T says:

Dear AT&T Managed Internet Service Customer:

Our records indicate that AT&T does not host any DNS for you. We show only a delegation for the IP block listed below:

x.x.x.x/x

The reverse ip zone is currently being delegated to the following nameservers:

ns.fbsm.com
ns2fbsm.com

You will need to have your current dns provider set up the reverse zone and add the pointer records.

Find below a listing of criteria that needs to be met for AT&T Worldnet MIS to provide reverse look-up services:

(1) IP block must be assigned by AT&T (Please note that just having an IP block and no forward domain is not sufficient)
(2) If a customer owns their own IP block it must be delegated to our name servers.
(3) If a customer has a IP block from another ISP it must be delegated
to our name servers.
(4) At least one forward domain must be hosted on our servers for all three of the conditions listed above.
(5) The one forward domain must not be a lame delegation* but must contain DNS records and not be a "dead" zone.

It is a common misconception that the owner of the IP block has to create the PTR records or only the owners of the IP address can add the PTR record, but that is not the case

Please refer to:
RFC 2317

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2317.html

For more information on IP delegations.

If AT&T is going to takeover your DNS we must provide primary DNS for at least 1 domain name that your company owns. Below is information
explaining our policies and procedures if you desire to have AT&T maintain your DNS records.

AT&T will host up to 15 domain names at no extra charge for each
MIS Circuit your company has with AT&T. Please provide us with a list of the host domains with associated IP records.

All domain names must be owned by the customer. The registrant
information found in the WHOIS lookup at Network Solutions is
what we use to determine ownership.


Once we have added the request to our nameservers, we will
send an email response to you confirming we have added the
domain name and give you the nameserver information so that
changes can be made with the registrar of your choice for
your domain name.

Thank You,

AT&T MIS DNS Tech Team
888 613-6330, prompts 3,1
bb

 

[lhuegele]

For some reason, I'm not suprised that AT&T would take that route out. It's the "what's in it for me" mentality that drove me away from AT&T in the late 1980's and I see that culture is still alive and well even after being purchased by SBC.

It looks to me like AT&T is farming out IP provisioning. Try contacting 50Below and see if they will help you set-up your reverse DNS entry for your mail server:

Toll Free 888.502.3569 (888.50BELOW)
Local 218.720.4828
Fax 218.722.7546
Email: info@50below.com

If not, you can try your webhost again. If they don't help either, I would ask to speak to their "customer retention" department and let them know they could be losing a customer if they don't help you. I don't think AT&T would care if you told them that, but your web host might.

Good luck!

 

[bubarooni]

50Below is my webhosting company. I've asked them several times about it, but...

My bosses are raking me over the coals over this. To them it's just 'computer stuff' and they can't see why I can't fix it.

I may need to call 50Below again and ask them for that 'Customer Retention Representative'!

 

[lhuegele]

Since they host your web site and your external forward facing DNS, there should be no reason why they can't set-up the PTR records for you. Tell them you want to speak to a DNS expert and don't take NO for an answer! Be polite but firm and if they don't help you, tell them you want to speak to someone over them until you reach the right person at 50Below to help you make this happen!

Customer "no service" just makes me sick in this day and age! Good luck!