[Mailman-Users] spam, AOL and server names

[Dennis Morgan]

Hi everyone!

First time posting, I've been reading with interest - very friendly 
helpful mailing list here! Hope I can help some in the future.

We have about a dozen mailing lists running on majordomo, and are 
getting ready to migrate to mailman. We're excited!

A persistent problem we've had is a significant amount of our users are 
AOL - and many are clueless. We're pretty ruthless about deleting AOL 
users when we get a report that someone is using their spam button - but 
even so a lot (most) of our mail to AOL gets rejected. We've decided 
that part of the problem is we're using an older version of majordomo.

I *think* another part of our problem can be found in this bit of our 
dns report from dnsstuff.com:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OK: All of your mailservers have their host name in the greeting:

mail.e-aa.org:
    220 dedicated.bixbycreek.com ESMTP Sendmail 8.12.10/8.12.10; Tue, 20 
Mar 2007 05:44:34 -0800
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In other words our mailing domain name is different than our mail server 
domain name.

As part of our migration we are moving from a shared server to our own 
dedicated server. The new server is
eaachat.org and the same section of the dns report for the new domain on 
the new server reads:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WARNING: One or more of your mailservers is claiming to be a host other 
than what it really is (the SMTP greeting should be a 3-digit code, 
followed by a space or a dash, then the host name). If your mailserver 
sends out E-mail using this domain in its EHLO or HELO, your E-mail 
might get blocked by anti-spam software. This is also a technical 
violation of RFC821 4.3 (and RFC2821 4.3.1). Note that the hostname 
given in the SMTP greeting should have an A record pointing back to the 
same server. Note that this one test may use a cached DNS record.

 mail.eaachat.org claims to be non-existent host dedicated.eaachat.org:
 220 dedicated.eaachat.org ESMTP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm assuming that both of the above problems are part of our AOL 
problems. Am I correct? And if so - does anyone have a tip or two about 
what to do to resolve it?

We're creating an SPF record to see if that helps - we really want at 
least some of our mail to get through to AOL. We plan to make the switch 
next week.

Thank you,

dennis
e-aa.org List keeper