Topic: AOL rejects mail

[Matt]

Hi Just a very quick question, I have beed using sme 5.6 for several months now as an email server with a static IP address everything has worked as descibed I its great, however email that I send to aol users is always rejected, and the reason given by aol is that I am using a dynamic IP address.

So the question is should I configure my sme servers Local IP to be the same as my static IP?  or will that not any difference.

Many Thanks

Matt

[NickR]

FWIW, my ISP recently announced that any user who direct-delivers mail to AOL would need to notify them so that they could submit a whitelist of those IP's to AOL.  If you go through the ISP's smarthost, this isn't a requirement.

[Alex]

Unless AOL has changed their methods, you need to change the reverse lookup with your isp to point back to your domain.

[Marvin]

A friend of mine came across the same problem... aparently AOL is trying to cutback on spam... He's a legit business sending out real-estate insurance reports and he was blocked by AOL because he started using an e-smith server and was on Comcast. i.e. he was shipping directly out of the office.

I guess what I am saying is that if you're a business AOL thinks you should be with a real hosting company, or smart enough to set up your domain properly with a static IP.

Moral of my story, no more dynamic ip addressed e-mail servers will get through to AOL.

[Maggard]

Matt wrote:
>
> Hi Just a very quick question, I have beed using sme 5.6 for
> several months now as an email server with a static IP
> address everything has worked as descibed I its great,
> however email that I send to aol users is always rejected,
> and the reason given by aol is that I am using a dynamic IP
> address.
>
> So the question is should I configure my sme servers Local IP
> to be the same as my static IP?  or will that not any
> difference.

Do a [insert big search engine of choice] and look up "AOL blocking email". Check out Usenet too. This has been well documented. AOL in it's efforts to cut down spam is declining messages from addresses without reverse lookups.

The solution is pretty trivial: Use your ISP's smtp server. You can either have your email clients connect directly or go through SME's server with it set to pass on all email. Or get a connection with a proper revesre lookup.

[Terry]

Or, do what I did, got the few of my friends that used AOL to sign up with a different ISP.  And for other people, too bad for them.  Everyone that has accounts on my server knows that mail to AOL won't go through, so we just don't send it.  Problem solved.