Help - Name server timeout

[Barry Finkel]

Jim Reid <jim at rfc1035.com> wrote:
>>>>> "Will" == Will Yardley <william+dns at hq.newdream.net> writes:

    Will> for instance i was having problems with sendmail 8.12 beta
    Will> and the domain 'prodigy.net.mx'.  there is a 'servfail'
    Will> response when asking for an aaaa record instead of an empty
    Will> response with an soa record.

>While there may or may not be a problem with sendmail's handling of
>AAAA records, this is ultimately a problem with the name servers for
>prodigy.net.mx. They are all running an old version of BIND, 8.1.2.
>None of them are answering authoritatively for that zone. If they are
>asked for a <name, type, class> tuple that isn't in the prodigy.net.mx
>domain, they return SERVFAIL. This might be a bug in 8.1.2. [Who
>cares? It's long dead.] Or it could be that the servers attempt to
>resolve those queries, find the zone's NS records point at themselves
>and then give up with a SERVFAIL.
>
>I've Cc'ed the SOA RNAME contact for this zone so hopefully someone
>there will fix the problem of the non-authoritative answers and
>upgrade their name servers.

I have seen lots of the sircam virus that has a return path of

     prodigy.net.mx

even though the mail did not originate from there.  I have seen the
userid portion of the return address contaim multiple cntl-a characters.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Barry S. Finkel
Electronics and Computing Technologies Division
Argonne National Laboratory          Phone:    +1 (630) 252-7277
9700 South Cass Avenue               Facsimile:+1 (630) 252-9689
Building 221, Room B236              Internet: BSFinkel at anl.gov
Argonne, IL   60439-4844             IBMMAIL:  I1004994