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.