RE: Is IBM email trashed?

PING only works for "hosts". As part of an email address, you need to look
for DNS MX records to find the actual hosts responsible for handling IBM's
email. Sometimes the domain name corresponds to a single "host" - often for
large organizations it's merely a reference to a list of mail servers (via a
DNS MX list).

Even then, there's no guarantee "PING" will work, as many firewalls block
ICMP packets. In this case, the MX records are:


:nslookup
Default Server:  tasha.3k.com
Address:  198.151.172.50

> set type=mx
> us.ibm.com
Server:  tasha.3k.com
Address:  198.151.172.50

us.ibm.com
preference = 10, mail exchanger = e1.ny.us.ibm.com
us.ibm.com
preference = 10, mail exchanger = e2.ny.us.ibm.com
us.ibm.com
preference = 10, mail exchanger = e3.ny.us.ibm.com
us.ibm.com
preference = 10, mail exchanger = e4.ny.us.ibm.com
us.ibm.com
preference = 10, mail exchanger = e5.ny.us.ibm.com
us.ibm.com
preference = 10, mail exchanger = e6.ny.us.ibm.com
us.ibm.com
preference = 10, mail exchanger = e31.co.us.ibm.com
us.ibm.com
preference = 10, mail exchanger = e32.co.us.ibm.com
us.ibm.com
preference = 10, mail exchanger = e33.co.us.ibm.com
us.ibm.com
preference = 10, mail exchanger = e34.co.us.ibm.com
us.ibm.com
preference = 10, mail exchanger = e35.co.us.ibm.com
us.ibm.com
preference = 10, mail exchanger = e36.co.us.ibm.com
ibm.com
nameserver = ns.watson.ibm.com
ibm.com
nameserver = ns.austin.ibm.com
ibm.com
nameserver = ns.almaden.ibm.com
ibm.com
nameserver = internet-server.zurich.ibm.com
e1.ny.us.ibm.com
internet address = 32.97.182.101
e2.ny.us.ibm.com
internet address = 32.97.182.102
e3.ny.us.ibm.com
internet address = 32.97.182.103
e4.ny.us.ibm.com
internet address = 32.97.182.104
e5.ny.us.ibm.com
internet address = 32.97.182.105
e6.ny.us.ibm.com
internet address = 32.97.182.106
e31.co.us.ibm.com
internet address = 32.97.110.129
e32.co.us.ibm.com
internet address = 32.97.110.130
>

Picking one at random, 32.97.182.101; PINGs to that system fail (probably
being blocked), but a telnet to port 25 (SMTP port) answers just fine.

So, if there's a problem, it's not that their servers are "down".

In your case, looks like DNS lookup was failing for your mail server. Either
a setup problem, or more likely, a transient DNS problem (more common these
days - especially with the periodic DOS attacks on the root DNS servers).

If the 550-host unknown message came back to you from an "internal" IBM box
though (i.e. the message left your box, went through one or more IBM boxes,
THEN was returned), then that'd indicate a SNAFU in their internal setup.

 -Chris Bartram

-----Original Message-----
From: rob@dekko.com [mailto:rob@dekko.com]
Sent: Monday, November 04, 2002 2:27 PM
To: midrange-l@midrange.com
Subject: Is IBM email trashed?

This is a multipart message in MIME format.
--
[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
I am trying to reply to an IBM email.  I am getting
550-Host Unknown
The address is xxxxx@us.ibm.com

When I ping us.ibm.com I get Unknown host
When I ping nra.org, it works.

Rob Berendt
--