Aol Mail Servers - Having Trouble? Ideas?

Yesterday I noticed mail being sent out from my mail server was being returned with a "can't connect to host" error. Apparently my mail server cannot connect to any of the AOL mail servers. So I started looking into this a little more, and this is what I found.

First I do:

nslookup
set q=mx
aol.com

This is what I get regarding their mx records:

Non-authoritative answer:
aol.com MX preference = 15, mail exchanger = mailin-03.mx.aol.com
aol.com MX preference = 15, mail exchanger = mailin-04.mx.aol.com
aol.com MX preference = 15, mail exchanger = mailin-01.mx.aol.com
aol.com MX preference = 15, mail exchanger = mailin-02.mx.aol.com

So Next I Do:

ping mailin-03.mx.aol.com
ping mailin-04.mx.aol.com
ping mailin-01.mx.aol.com
ping mailin-02.mx.aol.com

I get no reply from any. So I do:

tracert mailin-03.mx.aol.com - Last reply from: 66.185.143.238 then times out.
tracert mailin-04.mx.aol.com - Last reply from: 66.185.143.122 then times out.
tracert mailin-01.mx.aol.com - Last reply from: 66.185.143.238 then times out.
tracert mailin-02.mx.aol.com - Last reply from: 66.185.143.238 then times out.

When I look up who the IP Block belongs to I get:

OrgName: AOL Transit Data Network
OrgID: ATDN

NetRange: 66.185.128.0 - 66.185.159.255
CIDR: 66.185.128.0/19
NetName: ATDN
NetHandle: NET-66-185-128-0-1
Parent: NET-66-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Assignment
NameServer: DNS-01.ATDN.NET
NameServer: DNS-02.ATDN.NET
Comment:
RegDate: 2001-10-31
Updated: 2001-10-31

TechHandle: AOL-NOC-ARIN
TechName: America Online, Inc.
TechPhone: +1-703-265-4670
TechEmail: [email protected]

I checked this stuff from multiple locations and I keep getting the same results. So basically my questions are:

1) Is anyone else experiencing these problems? Clients are starting to get a little urked that mail they send to AOL isn't going through.
2) Any idea how I can fix this problem at least temporarily on my end? Maybe some alternative DNS servers that can bypass that whole block that isn't replying?
3) Any suggestions on how I can look into this more, or maybe notice anything I did in the steps above that are wrong?

Thanks!

Update: I just used a web based ping utility to ping all the AOL mail servers. Only received a response from one mail server. And it only replied once out of the 4 ping attempts. Seems to me like the mail servers are really bogged down. I still would like to hear what anyone else finds out though. I could be wrong.

Tryed to ping all 4 servers and no reply on either one...

Only error i can see is the fact that all the servers have the same mx of 15
aol.com MX preference = 15, mail exchanger = mailin-03.mx.aol.com
aol.com MX preference = 15, mail exchanger = mailin-04.mx.aol.com
aol.com MX preference = 15, mail exchanger = mailin-01.mx.aol.com
aol.com MX preference = 15, mail exchanger = mailin-02.mx.aol.com

Normaly you would use
MX 10 - First Server
MX 20 - Second Server
MX 30 - Third Server
MX 40 - Forth Server

But i guess they have a reason for that..

Hope you work it out..

If you want i can setup a pop3 account on my server.. =)

Yea, I noticed that they all have 15. I thought that was strange. Thanks for the offer for the pop 3, but no thanks. My mail server is working fine, it just keeps returning mail sent to AOL addresses. I just want to make sure this is a mess up on AOL's end, and not mine. This way I can explain it to the clients that call wondering why.

Ahhh okay.. i thougt you had an account at aol that dident work.. just read the question wrong.. =)
What mailserver are you running ?

I'm running RockLiffe MailSite on a W2K Server box. Been running it for almost a year now, and ran into very few problems. I didn't make any changes to the settings when AOL mail started getting returned to my users. So I really think it is a problem on AOL's end, unless it is a problem with my upstream's DNS records.

I just hope it starts working soon. Everyone seems to know someone on AOL that they e-mail.

Okay.. this is now wierd... i just send a test mail to [email protected]


This is the data from my mail server
<snip>

12/12/02 17:30:48 SMTP-IN 492 192.168.1.2 220 virtuaserver.dk ESMTP Mail Enable SMTP Service, Version: 1.5018-- ready at Thu, 12 Dec 2002 17:30:48 +0100 0 0
12/12/02 17:30:48 SMTP-IN 492 192.168.1.2 EHLO EHLO virtus 250-virtuaserver.dk [192.168.1.2], this server offers 4 extensions 128 13
12/12/02 17:30:48 SMTP-IN 492 192.168.1.2 MAIL MAIL FROM: <[email protected]> 250 Requested mail action okay, completed 43 32
12/12/02 17:30:48 SMTP-IN 492 192.168.1.2 RCPT RCPT TO: <[email protected]> 250 Requested mail action okay, completed 43 31
12/12/02 17:30:48 SMTP-IN 3301F8866944AC3B9B11364536FE.MAI 492 192.168.1.2 DATA DATA 354 Start mail input; end with <CRLF>.<CRLF> 46 6
12/12/02 17:30:50 SMTP-OU 9198A76EA3A14D649C4C21020BA9A.MAI 508 64.12.136.249 CONN 220-rly-xf03.mx.aol.com ESMTP mail_relay_in-xf3.2; Thu, 12 Dec 2002 11:28:50 1900 0 327
12/12/02 17:30:50 SMTP-OU 9198A76EA3A14D649C4C21020BA9A.MAI 508 64.12.136.249 EHLO EHLO virtuaserver.dk 250-rly-xf03.mx.aol.com 0x503e27be.albnxx12.adsl-dhcp.tele.dk 0 73
12/12/02 17:30:51 SMTP-OU 9198A76EA3A14D649C4C21020BA9A.MAI 508 64.12.136.249 MAIL MAIL FROM: <[email protected]> 250 OK 0 8
12/12/02 17:30:51 SMTP-IN 3301F8866944AC3B9B11364536FE.MAI 492 192.168.1.2 QUIT QUIT 221 Service closing transmission channel 42 6
12/12/02 17:30:51 SMTP-OU 9198A76EA3A14D649C4C21020BA9A.MAI 508 64.12.136.249 RCPT RCPT TO: <[email protected]> 250 OK 0 8
12/12/02 17:30:51 SMTP-OU 9198A76EA3A14D649C4C21020BA9A.MAI 508 64.12.136.249 DATA DATA 354 START MAIL INPUT, END WITH "." ON A LINE BY ITSELF 0 56
12/12/02 17:30:51 SMTP-OU 9198A76EA3A14D649C4C21020BA9A.MAI 508 64.12.136.249 DATE 250 OK 0 8
12/12/02 17:30:51 SMTP-OU 9198A76EA3A14D649C4C21020BA9A.MAI 508 64.12.136.249 QUIT QUIT 221 SERVICE CLOSING CHANNEL 0 29

</snip>

<Debug>
12/12/02 17:30:48 Relay Granted: [SMTP:[email protected]] is in local address map.
12/12/02 17:30:49 SMTPServer (Outgoing)!Packaging Message for individual domains.
12/12/02 17:30:49 Queueing outbound message to:[SMTP:[email protected]]
12/12/02 17:30:50 Domain [aol.com] has MX list [mailin-03.mx.aol.com,mailin-04.mx.aol.com,mailin-01.mx.aol.com,mailin-02.mx.aol.com]
12/12/02 17:30:50 SMTPServer (Outgoing)!Send Message
12/12/02 17:30:51 (Debug) [492] end of conversation
12/12/02 17:30:51 Data Send Completed
12/12/02 17:30:51 Send Completed Successfully- Message:9198A76EA3A14D649C4C21020BA9A.MAI
</Debug>

Its working i guess.

Havent heard about Rocklife.. but ive been using the IIS smtp server for some time untill i had like 100.000 outgoing mails hehe.. then i found Mail Enable.. and its GREAT
Unlimited Domains with support for 1.000.000 pop3 accounts pr domain or something like that.. and umm.. freeware =)

Hmm... That is strange. So the mail servers are timing out like crazy, but mail is still going through. Weird. I'm going to try and send an e-mail to [email protected] and see what happens over on my end. Hopefully things are working again.

Quote:

---

Mail Enable - Unlimited Domains with support for 1.000.000 pop3 accounts pr domain or something like that.. and umm.. freeware.

---

Sounds like something worth checking out, can you link me to their site? How many domains do you currently host, and how long have you been using it for?

I am posting again, because I am still encountering this problem. Anyone have any ideas?

When I do a tracert to any of the 4 AOL mail servers, I am getting a reply from 172.20.149.42 saying Destination net unreachable.

What is wierd is that yesterday all the mail directed to AOL that was being held up on my mail server suddenly got sent out all at once. But since then all new mail that is being sent to AOL users is being held up AGAIN at my mail server. This seems to have happened out of no where. I made no changes to the mail servers settings, or my DNS records.

Any ideas or suggestions? This is driving me nuts! Thanks.