Bernd Wurst <[email protected]> writes:

> No, it's the other way round.  The above metioned check would do a
> reverse lookup of the connected IP address and then match the
> resulting host name against the HELO name.  What I said is to
> resolve the HELO name and omit this check if this matches the
> connected IP address.

It's only "the other way round" in terms of implementation details
(i.e., how you write the code to check for a match).  I was thinking
more in terms of configuration files and the semantics of the check.
Perhaps I didn't express it clearly, but this is what I intended to be
saying.

I think that's what the guy in the other thread long ago was saying
too.  In context, he seemed to be saying that the existing HELO check
was unsuitable for his needs because it was too strict, and he was
desirous of having less-severe options.  All of the proposed checks
were intended to be strictly more lenient than the existing HELO
check.  If you read the proposal in that light, it seems obvious that
a HELO that resolves to the sending host's IP address would pass.

A match is good, and an exact match is at least as good as a partial
match, irrespective of exactly you arrive at the conclusion that it
matches.  If the IP address and the HELO name match exactly, either
forwards *or* backwards, then that's at least as good as a partial
match (I would say better).  So it should pass that check.

Which, I think, is approximately what you were advocating, only in
different words.  You said "skip the check", and I view it as "passing
the check", but the outcome is presumably just about the same: we're
not going to reject or otherwise penalize the message based on this
check, if the HELO is a positive match for the IP address.

> (Given that "actual FQDN" is the reverse lookup of the IP address.)

Any FQDN that resolves to the correct IP address is also an actual
FQDN of the host in question.  

(The reason you use reverse lookup to check for partial matches is
because it provides a way to check for them.  I don't know of any
obvious and computationally reasonable way to check for partial
matches against forwardly-resolved A records.  But an exact match 
is entirely straightforward to verify.)

> If I have a home server on a dialup connection, 

If you are on a dialup connection, your ISP provides a mail server
that will relay on your behalf.  (You might have to set up
authentication of some kind, but that should be no problem.)

However, I'm not proposing that your setup should fail the test,
because, as discussed above, the A record indicates a match.

-- 
Nathan Eady
Galion Public Library


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