[Note that this change was actually made about a year ago, around November 1, 2005. I hope the delayed notification doesn't cause any major issues.]

Previously, each SURBL zone file, including the bitmask-combined list multi.surbl.org, had testpoints with A records resolving to 127.0.0.2. That was a design decision, and it was also convenient to the way the zone files were generated before.

But Justin Mason or one of the other SpamAssassin developers argued that multi should have testpoints corresponding to all ones set for each bitmask position. So testpoints for multi.surbl.org now have all the bits set for an A record value of 127.0.0.126 instead of 127.0.0.2 .

(If a new list is added in future using the 128th bit, then the new testpoint values in multi will be 127.0.0.254)

This may work better with applications that decode the bits into individual list results, but it is a change from before and it may break other applications' use of the testpoints.

The multi.surbl.org BIND zone file contains:

test.surbl.org 604800 IN A 127.0.0.126 604800 IN TXT "multi.surbl.org permanent test point" test.multi.surbl.org 604800 IN A 127.0.0.126 604800 IN TXT "multi.surbl.org permanent test point" surbl-org-permanent-test-point.com 604800 IN A 127.0.0.126 604800 IN TXT "multi.surbl.org permanent test point" 2.0.0.127 604800 IN A 127.0.0.126 604800 IN TXT "multi.surbl.org permanent test point"

The multi.surbl.org rbldnsd zone file contains:

test.surbl.org :126:multi.surbl.org permanent test point test.multi.surbl.org :126:multi.surbl.org permanent test point surbl-org-permanent-test-point.com :126:multi.surbl.org permanent test point 2.0.0.127 :126:multi.surbl.org permanent test point

Cheers,

Jeff C.