Re: balsa problems, probably esmtp related, probably my own system

["M . Thielker" <balsa t-data com>]

Hi,

  this does not appear to be a forward resolution problem. If pinging the 
ISP's mail server by name works, then libESMTP will also be able to connect 
to it by name.
I have come across some SMTP servers that will not accept client 
connections unless they can do a successful reverse lookup on the address 
of the connecting client.
This seems to be such a case. If your IP cannot be resolved to a name by an 
IRC server, it most likely also cannot be resolved by the mail server.
This would happen if your ISP's reverse zone is broken, or the server 
serving it is down.
There is nothing you can do about that, really. You just will not be able 
to connect to the SMTP server until the DNS is fixed.
To confirm that that is the problem, try telnetting to port 25 on the SMTP 
server. If it takes an inordinately long time to show a banner, or gives an 
error code and closes the connection, that is where your problem lies.
Doing a reverse lookup on the client address is one of the things that have 
arisen after the spam avalanche really got rolling. More and more ISP's do 
it to prevent or discourage would-be spammers from using their mail 
servers. See also the discussions about open mail relays and such.

Melanie