DNS, Mail trouble

[James A Griffin]

Jason McGraw wrote:
> 
> Some of our users are having trouble sending mail to particular domains.
> These are examples of the messages in the maillog:
> 
> Aug  9 09:39:21 explorer sendmail[6330]: f79EDZD03091:
> to=<Kaiser_Tom_J at cat.com>, ctladdr=<gjohnson@
> boyertrucks.com> (559/45), delay=00:25:46, xdelay=00:00:11, mailer=esmtp,
> pri=147764, relay=mail2.ca
> t.com. [198.206.246.199], dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: 451 4.1.8
> <gjohnson at boyertrucks.com>... Domain o
> f sender address gjohnson at boyertrucks.com does not resolve
> 
> Aug  9 09:39:40 explorer sendmail[6330]: f78FubD17411:
> to=<christopher.aguilera at yokota.af.mil>, ctla
> ddr=<dnewville at boyertrucks.com> (586/45), delay=22:43:02, xdelay=00:00:03,
> mailer=esmtp, pri=2100719
> , relay=yok-sr2.yokota.af.mil. [131.36.116.57], dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred:
> 451 4.1.8 <dnewville at boyer
> trucks.com>... Domain of sender address dnewville at boyertrucks.com does not
> resolve

There are delegation and configuration errors for boyertrucks.com.  They
seem to have be made on or about 13 June 2001.

Doc-2.2.2: doc -v -p boyertrucks.com.
Doc-2.2.2: Starting test of boyertrucks.com.   parent is com.
Doc-2.2.2: Test date - Thu Aug  9 11:50:15 EDT 2001
Note: Skipping parent domain testing
Found 2 NS and 2 glue records for boyertrucks.com. @a.gtld-servers.net.
(non-AUTH)
Using NSlist from parent domain server a.gtld-servers.net.
NS list summary for boyertrucks.com. from parent (com.) servers
  == explorer.boyertrucks.com. ns1.uswest.net.
soa @explorer.boyertrucks.com. for boyertrucks.com. serial: 2000072801
ERROR: non-authoritative SOA for boyertrucks.com. from
explorer.boyertrucks.com.soa @ns1.uswest.net. for boyertrucks.com.
serial:
ERROR: no SOA record for boyertrucks.com. from ns1.uswest.net.
SYSerr: No servers for boyertrucks.com. returned SOAs ...
Summary:
   YIKES: doc aborted while testing boyertrucks.com.  parent com.
   ERRORS found for boyertrucks.com. (count: 2)
   Incomplete test for boyertrucks.com. (1)
Done testing boyertrucks.com.  Thu Aug  9 11:50:19 EDT 2001

The master zone on explorer.boyertrucks.com is not authorative.  Check
the log on that server for error messages when named is started.

These condifuration errors will result in the sort of intermitent
delivery problems that you are seeing.

> 
> Most mail goes through just fine. I assume it has to do with DNS, but I am
> new to this and I'm having trouble finding a low level answer to this
> question.
> 
> Could anybody help out?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Jason McGraw