AOL blocking MailScanner messages!

[Daniel Bird]

Dear all,
Apologies for the shock subject line, but it seems to be the case (at
least for our site;-).

Recently, we started seeing messages like:
2003-12-02 16:09:43 1ARD5c-0002Sm-Rm ** ******@aol.com <*****@aol.com>
R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp: SMTP error from remote mailer after end of
data: host mailin-03.mx.aol.com [64.12.137.152]: 554 TRANSACTION FAILED
554 AOL will not accept delivery of this message

in our Exim mail logs

After numerous emails to postmaster at aol.com (all replys were automated
"sorry for the inconvenience", "read this/that policy" types) I ended up
calling them (at international rates I might add!!!).

The 'helpful' gentleman on the end of the phone suggested turning off
any scanning software and retrying. Now, all I did was add the line

To:    *@aol.com    no

to /etc/MailScanner/rules/virus.scanning.rules

and restart.

After this change all was well and delivery started. The only
differences I can think of between the two emails that would have been
sent would be the omission of the X-MailScanner headers (apart from
X-MailScanner-<site-name>: not scanned,etc )and a MailScanner signature

Looking at the error message they are rejecting on data content after
the initial SMTP connection so this makes me think (a hunch) they are
rejecting on X-MailScanner-xxxx : Found to be clean or other MailScanner
headers. (Sobig.F springs to mind!)

Has anyone else noticed this behavior from AOL on their MTA?

I have opened a ticket with their postmaster team to see if I can verify
the above assumptions. In the mean time I've left the virus scanning off
for AOL recipients.

Additionally, if they are blocking on "X-MailScanner-<site-name>: Found
to be clean" I am wondering if it would be possible to customize the
"found to be clean message" as this would be the value in the
MailScanner headers from my 4 mail hubs that would be consistent.

Regards
Dan


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