I think I found out what's going on. What follows is my interpretation.

The MAPS subscription requires that DNS queries be made directly from the IP address 
you provide when you subscribe. When I have the mail server set to use our ISP's DNS 
servers, they're unable to handle the query because they aren't subscrbed to MAPS. 
Having the mail server use the local DNS server doesn't help, since it passes requests 
for unknown addresses onto the ISP's DNS servers.

Solution: Enter the IP address for one of mail-abuse.org's name servers into the first 
line of the Name Server field in TCP/IP settings. Don't enter the local DNS server 
here--it just adds an unnecessary extra layer to the lookups and increases the load on 
poor old MacDNS. (But if you do have the SIMS machine refer to a local DNS server, 
then THAT machine must have the mail-abuse.org name server as its parent server. Also, 
that machine needs to be the one with the MAPS subscription.)

Problem with this solution: the mail-abuse.org name server is also going to be queried 
when SIMS does its other lookups. This doesn't hurt anything but it puts an extra load 
on mail-abuse.org.

Possible feature request: have SIMS perform RBL lookups directly. It seems that this 
should be too hard. For example, with WhatRoute, when you do a name lookup, it seems 
to bypass the DNS servers listed in TCP/IP and query the authoritative DNS server 
directly.

--Elliot Wilen


Elliot Wilen wrote:
>I had SIMS working fine with the three MAPS-sponsored blacklists (RBL,
>RSS, and DUL) until they recently began requiring subscriptions. At that
>point, I decided to subscribe to RBL+, but I haven't been able to get it to
>work.
>
>Here's what I've done so far:
>
>1. Removed previous entries in the RBL DNS Servers list and entered:
>
>rbl-plus.mail-abuse.org
>
>2. Noting that queries on x.x.x.x.rbl-plus.mail.abuse.org return a
>different range of responses compared to RBL/RSS/DUL, I removed
>127.0.0.2-127.0.0.10 from my blacklisted addresses and replaced it with
>127.1.0.1-127.1.0.7. When this didn't help, I entered the range as seven >individual
>addresses, one per line, and I've left it that way.
>
>3. Configured TCP/IP on the mail server so that the local DNS server
>(which also happens to be the local mail server) is on the first line of the
>Name server addr. field. Previously, the mail server was using our ISP's
>DNS servers for its own queries, as a way of taking the load off of MacDNS.
>However, it seems that the subscription system requires rbl+ queries to be
>made directly from the registered DNS server.
>
>Still no luck. I suspect the problem is that MacDNS can't handle the
>proper query class. In which case, would QuickDNS or NonSequitur
><http://www.gross.net/nonsequitur/> be a likely solution to my problem?
>
>Thanks in advance.


#############################################################
This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to
  the mailing list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.
To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To switch to the INDEX mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Send administrative queries to  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Reply via email to