>Well, it looks like reverse DNS. Stupid me didn't realize that the
>receiving servers (AOL) look for a reverse record from "walkerschools.org"
>(the server part of the e-mail address) instead of
>"mail.walkerschools.org" (the actual hostname that connects to them).
That's probably not the case, actually. Very few mailservers, if any, will
try to match the reverse DNS entry with the HELO text or E-mail address --
that would generate *huge* amounts of false positives (and I believe the
RFCs specifically say that you can't block mail based on the HELO text).
What AOL is doing (although they don't acknowledge it, it's been proven) is
taking the IP address of mailservers that connect to it (for example,
"192.168.112.48") and seeing if they have a reverse DNS entry
("mail.example.com" or "example.com" or "192-168-112-48.example.com"). If
there is *no* reverse DNS entry (like the mailserver you posted from the
first time), AOL may or may not reject the message (depending on some
factors that nobody except AOL knows). If you have a reverse DNS entry (as
the mailserver for walkerschools.org does), that will help in sending mail
to AOL, but you still may get caught for other reasons.
>Anyway, when you do a reverse on walkerschools.org,
That's a forward lookup (reverse DNS lookups take an IP address and return
a host name).
>it points to my www server because I like my users to be able to surf to
>our website without typing "www" before walkerschools.org.
That's fine (lots of domains are set up like that).
Just so long as you have the reverse DNS entry, you should be OK. If you
are still having problems sending mail to AOL, you'll need to contact them
to find out why, although that won't be easy (because [1] they may delete
E-mails you send them, and [2] it may be very hard to find someone there
who knows what is going on).
-Scott
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