Sorry to be back here with this since I was truly hoping it would be
resolved by now since it's yet weeks later and still a problem but I thought
I might be able to use another "spot".
Here's where the issue stands:
Certain systems still are not able to get mail to my server. The initial
errors that they were getting have been something like this:
## pleiadesdesign.com: Name server timeout Message could not be delivered
for 2 hours Message will be deleted from queue ##
Now, what I've done in the mean time, reworked my DNS config, reworked my
exim config. Set up secondary DNS on Xname so I'd have some 'correct'
secondary DNS. I've been in touch with my co-lo provider and tried to get
through to non-scripted robotic people at Time Warner (since they're the
next hop and where some of my connection attempts die) both of these haven't
yielded any positive results. However, when I added secondary DNS off-site
the error "did" change to this:
## Deferred: Connection refused by mail.pleiadesdesign.com. ##
Now, I can say with extreme certainty that I am in "no way" blocking mail or
connections and even have dropped my trousers on this one to ensure that I'm
not blocking anything and I don't even get so much as an attempted
connection to my system by any of the systems having this problem meaning
the traffic isn't even making it to my server. What I suspect (which I have
for a bit but am getting closer to being able to prove this beyond a doubt)
is that there are a select few routing systems on the net which for some
reason are not properly routing traffic in my direction like they should be.
This theory is backed up by when I added secondary DNS all of a sudden the
error changed. Before it complained about a DNS timeout stating it
essentially couldn't connect to my DNS servers. By the message changing it
can be deduced that DNS is now functioning but once it received the
translation and attempted to make contact with the mail server the
connection was blocked somewhere along the way.
What I need, if someone would be so kind (Maybe Ted perhaps if you still
have those subnets which appeared blocked) is for someone to toss
traceroutes from their direction at my server and then me send traceroutes
back at it and see where things are stopping.
I suspect it will be roughly the same spot on the net which will allow me to
definitively and beyond a reasonable doubt state that the issue is with
whatever node shows up as the last in both of our traces.
So, what that, any additional help on this tid bit would be extremely,
greatly appreciated. And I'm kinda wondering, is anyone else having this
problem or is it just me right now?
