Page History

...

A: Second, do some tests with Net::DNS to make sure it is resolving names (see the Net::DNS site for examples). A common mistake for client machines (such as Mandrake 9.2) is to have 127.0.0.1 in the </etc/resolv.conf> file – Net::DNS does not check multiple nameservers it appears, so you need to comment this line out for Net::DNS to work. (Anybody with a better solution, other than running a local nameserver?)

A: Third, if your email gateway is behind a firewall make sure that SpamAssassin is resolving the gateway to it's external address. If SpamAssassin resolves the gateway to an private IP or can't resolve the name at all, it may mark the sending system as a trusted relay. As a result, some or all of the spammer's systems will not be checked against the DNSBL. (I'm not aware of anyway to specify 'last trusted relay' in SA).

Q. Wouldn't it be a good idea to run a local nameserver anyway? So, you can run caching-nameserver to cache blocklist query results.

...