Reverse DNS

Question

Reverse DNS

Ant-Green

SSC Guru

Points: 113509
More actions
August 10, 2012 at 6:15 am

#74418

Totally off topic of SQL, but we are having issues sending mail to some domains.
We use a 3rd party to host SQL and we use DB mail to send emails out to people, pretty much like the forums on here does with notifications.
The issue is that domains like AOL and ATT require you to have reverse DNS setup other wise they treat you as a spam sender.
Now as we send mail from our companies domain extension from the hosting provider, would we setup the reverse DNS address at our companies domain DNS which is managed via ENOM, or would the reverse DNS be setup at the hosting providers side of things?

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply

HowardW One Orange Chip Points: 29109 More actions · Answer 1

I'm pretty sure this needs to be resolved by the provider of the IP that the mail is getting sent from (e.g. your host).

Specifically, it needs to have a PTR record that resolves to the name specified in the MX record from your domain's DNS.

Ant-Green SSC Guru Points: 113509 More actions · Answer 2

Thanks Howard, I have checked our hosting domain controllers which govern the "hosted" lan, and can confirm that there is a PTR record for the IP address, in the reverse lookup zone for our hosted domain.

The PTR points to the hostname though and not the domain name, is that the error, or is it something more higher up at the hosting provider?

We dont use the provider for email just web and SQL hosting. Exchange and the actual company domain is local to our offices.

HowardW One Orange Chip Points: 29109 More actions · Answer 3

Yep, that's the problem, the PTR record must point to your domain's MX record or Reverse DNS will fail. There's no other way around it that I know of...

As far as I'm aware, PTR isn't used for anything other than checking Reverse DNS for mail purposes, so it shouldn't affect anything else, but I'm not an expert.

Ant-Green SSC Guru Points: 113509 More actions · Answer 4

So if I change the PTR to map to companyabc.com instead of the hostname, then in theory it should work.

Ant-Green SSC Guru Points: 113509 More actions · Answer 5

I have done a check on our domain, and the reverse DNS comes back to the two IP's in the UK and are rDNS'ing via our ISP so all good there.

I did a check on the remote IP and it comes back as no rDNS record and is trying to rDNS via the hosting providers DNS servers in the US, so I would say it is deffinatly something which needs to be done at the hosting end rather than our end.