Help with DNS/MX Record!

L33 · 27 Mar 2008 at 09:49

Hi
Never done this before so I'm sure its just something silly that I've done. I've bought a domain name from 1and1, and am trying to set up DNS / mail exchanger record.

(Obviously these are not the 'real' details

)
Server IP is 10.20.30.40 (no ports blocked at all)
Registered domain name is "test.co.uk"

In the 1&1 control panel, I've the following:

DNS: test.co.uk, A Record: 10.20.30.40, MX Record: mx.test.co.uk
DNS: mx.test.co.uk, A Record: 10.20.30.40

Is that correctly set up?
In either case, mail is not coming through. The mailserver is running fine, I can telnet to 10.20.30.40 ports 25/110/143.
- I can ping test.co.uk and it resolves to 10.20.30.40
- I can ping mx.test.co.uk and it resolves to 10.20.30.40

mxtoolbox.com's lookup tool brings back the following details when I check against the 'test.co.uk' domain:
Preference: 10, Hostname: mx.test.co.uk, IP: 0.0.0.0, TTL: 86400
No idea why it is returning 0.0.0.0

EDIT: Mails sent to an account *@test.co.uk are coming back saying unable to find IP/MX record.

If anyone can help it'd be much appreciated

jimjamuk · 27 Mar 2008 at 11:45

DNS can take a while to propagate out to other DNS servers - when did you make those changes?

Uhtred · 27 Mar 2008 at 12:06

Isn't it a Cname you have to setup for mail?

edit - perhaps not

quackers · 27 Mar 2008 at 13:28

That looks right to me, put your domain in here:

http://www.checkdns.net/quickcheckdomainf.aspx

If the mx record/dns is right, you should have no errors at the very bottom. Also as mentioned, it can take 24-48hrs before dns will properly propagate

branddaly · 27 Mar 2008 at 14:04

easiest option I can see to test this is to fireup nslookup. From a command prompt

C:\>nslookup
Default Server: dnscache0.eng.net
Address: 213.130.128.32

> server ns0.eng.net
Default Server: ns0.eng.net
Address: 192.168.10.37

> set type=mx
> bhazey.co.uk
Server: ns0.eng.net
Address: 192.168.10.37

DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
bhazey.co.uk MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = mail.bhazey.co
bhazey.co.uk nameserver = ns.hosteurope.com
bhazey.co.uk nameserver = ns2.hosteurope.com

Obviously where I've put ns0.eng.net as the server put the nameserver you are updating, and use your domain not mine, for the results.

the one thing that is confusing me, and it may not apply to the interface you are using to update your records, is that DNS entries normally end with a period i.e.

mail.bhazey.co.uk. A 213.130.146.171

if it did not have the period after the uk it would be translated by the DNS server as

mail.bhazey.co.uk.bhazey.co.uk A 213.130.146.171

As stated it depends on your registrars interface how they deal with it, they may or may not require it.

L33 · 27 Mar 2008 at 14:12

Thanks for all the help guys

Must've just taken ages to propagate, I made the changes Monday morning and suddenly its just started working, and mxtoolbox etc sees the correct ip for my mx record.

Thanks again for the replies

jimjamuk · 27 Mar 2008 at 14:40

cool - in this day and age DNS propagation needs to be sorted out and those TTL's need to be reduced globally - 3 days really isnt on if you ask me but there nothing you can do