[Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

[Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record
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anon @ 15th Sep 03:27AM:
[Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

OK, what the f is up with AT&T MIS not wanting to provide their T1 customers with reverse PTR records for the IPs they've provided them? Only choice was given that they won't put in a reverse PTR for an IP/Domain unless they host the domain. What?... sounds to me like they're wanting to make extra money from hosting/registering a domain by holding much needed rPTR records (for mail servers) hostage.

Sounds like it's something the FCC and FTC might be interested in hearing about.

What's everyone's opinion on this? Why would they do this, besides pure stupidity?
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NetFixer @ 15th Sep 07:46AM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

I agree that this is a stupid policy. However, maintenance of PTR records is reserved for the IP address owner, not the end user, and it is AT&T's network. They are free to administer it as they see fit.

Since you are posting from comcast.net, perhaps you should investigate a commercial Comcast HSI service. The last I heard, they were still providing rDNS PTR records for their commercial accounts with multiple static IP blocks.

I believe that telco CLECS such as Covad and Speakeasy also still provide this service for their clients.
--
History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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graysonf @ 15th Sep 10:26AM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

I have a client who has had a Bellsouth T1 and several business phone lines for many years and there were no problems with any part of it whatsoever, including getting the rDNS we needed to run the mail server.

However, the client decided to change over to the new ATT VoIP product that includes bringing in a new T1, a /28 block of IPs, and porting the phone numbers over. This was going to save them a large amount of money every month. There were long delays getting this installed, and ongoing problems with the phones once it was installed. The client was willing to work with them on getting the phone bugs worked out.

But we never got the internet moved over to the new T1. We run our forward DNS zones elsewhere and have no intentions of ever moving it over to Bellsouth or ATT. We required only rDNS for one IP for the mail server and we couldn't move that server over without the rDNS.

Bellsouth has provided this rDNS to us with no questions asked for many years. But ATT refused to provide it unless they also ran the forward zone for the domain. We had no intentions of ever having ATT/Bellsouth DNS servers be authoritative for the domain, host any of the services, etc. No way that was ever going to happen. So we don't care if they want to run a forward DNS zone or not, and if they do, we don't care what's actually in it.

All ATT had to do was create the forward zone they insisted on having with an A record that matched the PTR we requested. We didn't care what was really in that zone since we had no intention of ever pointing the domain to it.

They flat out refused to provide the rDNS to us. We told them that without it, we couldn't use the service, never got any further response out of them, so we canceled the new T1 with VoIP and ported the phones back to dedicated hard lines.

I don't know what these people are thinking, but this was by far the worst customer service experience we have ever had with anyone. Totally bizarre.
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anon @ 15th Sep 03:24PM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

Yes, exactly what graysonf said. This is not for me, but a client of mine. Some 3rd party reseller sold them on the new MIS T1 from AT&T switching them over from the old BellSouth T1 that we had absolutely no issues with in terms of rDNS for just one IP in the range (i.e. the mail server). AT&T MIS is another story and apparently they need to be investigated for their extortion practices in terms of gaining domain registrar control and recurring registration fees along with it from their MIS clients.

This type of business practice is rediculous and poses not intelligent reasoning behind it. All they have to do is provide rDNS to customers for whatever range of IPs they give them. When that range gets reassigned to someone else (another customer) all rDNS records should be removed form their DNS servers. Simple... takes 5 seconds. They're just being rediculous.
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AVonGauss @ 15th Sep 04:19PM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

I admit, this thread baffles me. The forward DNS does not implicitly have anything to do with the rDNS for the IP address. Has anyone tried using the AT&T direct forum to confirm that this is policy and not some internal miscommunication?
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graysonf @ 15th Sep 04:49PM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

It's ineptitude, malfeasance, miscommunication between numerous members of a highly fragmented support staff some of which are offshore - in Slovenia if you can believe it, and a flat out refusal to provide the requested service that only they can provide, even knowing what the consequences were going to be if they didn't.

During the process of trying to get this solved, we were emailed by ATT with obviously cut and pasted snippets of their "policy" (but not the entire policy document), an explanation of the elements of the policy they provided (an explanation that we didn't need and didn't request), and numerous items of justification for the policy that were not applicable to us or our situation. This communication from ATT brought new meaning to the word "amateurish." A better example of what not to send to a customer could not be created.

After reading this nonsense from ATT I Googled and actually found their full policy document on line. After reading that, it was clear that ATT could have and should have done exactly what was in their policy, no more and no less. We would have been happy with that as it wouldn't impact us in any way whatsoever. What ATT was insisting on was purely for them and them alone. We didn't even need to know they were doing it. And if they screwed the forward zone up, we wouldn't have known or cared.

We emailed them back with a copy of and the link to their full policy and told them they had 48 hours to provide the rDNS along with anything else they wanted to provide to themselves, but not us, as described within their own policy, or we would cancel the service. We never heard from them again, and just as we said we would do, we canceled.

Here is the URL to the . pdf of the ATT Policy that is applicable in this matter. »192.20.13.157/planner/tab010c.pdf
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graysonf @ 15th Sep 06:32PM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

said by NetFixer :

I agree that this is a stupid policy. However, maintenance of PTR records is reserved for the IP address owner, not the end user, and it is AT&T's network. They are free to administer it as they see fit.

This isn't about who maintains PTR records. It's about those being the only entity that can provide them and refusing to provide them.
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NetFixer @ 15th Sep 06:40PM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

said by graysonf :

This isn't about who maintains PTR records. It's about those being the only entity that can provide them and refusing to provide them.

You say bahnahnah, I say banana. :p

The simple fact that AT&T is the only one who can do it (and refuses to do so) is why the problem exists. And yes, it is certainly their right to refuse to do so even if it causes them to lose customers. I don't think anyone would accuse AT&T of being customer friendly.
--
History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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graysonf @ 15th Sep 06:59PM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

This was one of several conditions we required and specified in order to take the service. They didn't refuse at that point - prior to placing the order. But once they had us, they couldn't or wouldn't provide it.

I am convinced that it's just a matter of dealing with a completely clueless support staff. Their own published policy is what they quoted and are ignoring.

Like I said, it's bizarre. But they do get a lot more money having us on a large number of hard lines and a T1 as opposed to running VoIP over a T1.
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NetFixer @ 15th Sep 07:20PM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

I wish I could offer a solution, but even if I were to recommend a CLEC that I know has been cooperative in this in the past, that is no guarantee that they would not reverse their position tomorrow.

I have in fact in the past done installations similar to what your client had done for AT&T (prior to their becoming the ILEC in BellSouth territory), and I can't recall this being a problem then for customers who did their own DNS rather then farming it out to AT&T.
--
History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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graysonf @ 15th Sep 07:27PM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

We have had T1 and business class DSL service with static IP from numerous vendors over an almost 15 year period.

None of them ever refused to provide rDNS to us. Some accepted what we requested over the phone, some insisted it be in writing via an email, and one or two even insisted we fill out a form they provided and email it back. But none of them ever refused to provide rDNS. NONE. NOT ONE, NOT EVER.

And even ATT's own stated policy provides for it. We just couldn't get them to actually do it. We gave up after two weeks of haggling with them and another final 48 hours to get it done or begin porting the numbers back to hard lines.

I can't explain it other than the people we were handed off to are inept.
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NetFixer @ 15th Sep 07:39PM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

said by graysonf :

I can't explain it other than the people we were handed off to are inept.

That is probably the correct assessment. When I used to work with Ameritech/SBC, I rated their tech support and NOC people to be top notch. I suspect that when the layoffs started after the AT&T rebirth, the employees that got the axe were frequently the older more experienced techs and engineers who had the higher salaries.
--
History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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graysonf @ 15th Sep 08:20PM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

Even the way we were handled was unprofessional.

When we would email our primary point of contact for the service trying to get this done, we would almost never get a direct reply. Instead we were BCC'd in multiple email conversations between various ATT support staff, over a several day period, including one from Slovenia who could barely manage an intelligible sentence in the English language.

It's like it was up to us to read all this email chatter and decide if and when one of these folks stumbled into something pertinent - then ring a bell somewhere or shout out BINGO!

It was almost comical "listening" to all these folks researching things, talking about things, looking into things.

But there is this thing called "doing something about it" that escaped their grasp.
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joako @ 18th Sep 06:08AM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

Solution: let them host your forward DNS for a day and then switch it back once your PTRs are up-and-running.
--
PRescott7-2097
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graysonf @ 18th Sep 10:19AM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

We gave them everything they needed to do exactly that, but they still could not get this done, even though they were told retaining us as a customer depended on it.
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ArkiMage @ 18th Sep 10:52PM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

They refused to provide rDNS entries for your IPs in general or refused to provide specific rDNS entries that you asked for?

We've dealt with many ISPs, Bellsouth/AT&T included, where we've discovered client's IPs without rDNS. We've informed said ISPs and never had an issue with them refusing to fix it. It's generally always been theirchoice.theirdomain.com instead of anything we might have wanted it to be though. So be it, few if any instances where that would hurt anything. Simply having *something* for rDNS instead of nothing is generally the issue.
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graysonf @ 18th Sep 11:18PM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

None of the IPs have any rDNS as delivered with the service. This isn't unusual.

We requested a specific fully qualified host name for one IP. The same FQHN we have been using that agrees with the A record; the same one we have been using for over a decade with other ISPs.
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anon @ 24th Sep 02:27PM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

I switched from XO Communication T1 to AT&T MIS T1 to save a few bucks. I was told the same Crap about the PTR.
XO Communications had NO problem entering the PTR for us.
AT&T will NOT do it unless they hold the DNS. Plus they will not allow a lame domain. If you buy a domain name just to have the PTR, they will remove the PTR.

It really sucks on there parts cause you can't craigslist without it, no emails to AOL.com users from your company email server. I'm stuck in a contract now, I'm thinking of going with a SuperHost service as my work around. Any other Ideas? without having my domain moved.
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graysonf @ 24th Sep 02:38PM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

Terminate the contract for cause. We did.
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kremithefrog @ 29th Sep 12:39AM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

You can try this email address. I know it wasn't that hard to get done not very long ago.

dnsupdates@bellsouth.com
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graysonf @ 29th Sep 10:58AM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

We have already canceled the AT&T MIS with VoIP service. We are back on hard lines.

The address you supplied is the one we used for our Bellsouth T1 rDNS requests years ago. But that is a different group of people, IP space, and DNS services even though the companies have merged.
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getina50 @ 23rd Oct 01:46AM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

I am dealing with this as well. They call it Good DNS, and I understand their motive, however in some cases this just does not work. We have a domain hosted through Yahoo (not my decision) and the DNS cannot be delegated because the webserver has a dynamic load balancing IP that changes. Yahoo requires that all DNS is hosted with them. They also will not do PTR. AT&T will do nothing - will not budge so we have a broken Exchange Server as a result. No smarthost to send mail out to, etc.
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joako @ 24th Oct 07:07PM:
Re: [Services] AT&T MIS Declines Reverse PTR Record

PTR doesn't have to be the same as forward DNS, just as long as the PTR -> Forward matches the original.

If you can't have your domain offline that is understandable. Get another domain, host it with AT&T and get your PTR. Once your PTR is setup transfer the domain away from AT&T DNS.... or do they check for that and stop the PTR?
--
PRescott7-2097
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