MX Record Help

Smokes · 18 Jan 2006 at 12:03

Afternoon. Right I need to setup a MX record for one of my mates so that email is pushed to the destination via smtp rather than collected from a pop3 box.

The domain has been registered with uk2 and they have the mx record address as uk2mxarray3.uk2.net reading as "MX 0 uk2mxarray3.uk2.net"

Now the only option I have is to change the address, and I've set this up as the static IP thats used onsite, so it now reads "MX 0 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx"

Is this likely to work fine? I can't test it untill the uk2 nameservers restart over night but just wanted to make sure it was setup right first. Do I have to add anything to the exchange server that will be collecting the mail?

Thanks

#Chri5# · 18 Jan 2006 at 12:13

I thought MX records had to point to a FQDN, not an IP - happy to be told otherwise though...

Cuchulain · 18 Jan 2006 at 12:17

You could just set up another A record of say "somethingorother.domainname.com" and point that to the IP address, then point your MX record to "somethingorother" that should work fine.

Burbleflop · 18 Jan 2006 at 12:23

MX records can point to an IP address, but not to a CNAME.

Smokes · 18 Jan 2006 at 15:02

Thanks for your replies guys. Just sent a test email on the off chnce and it works, so looks like its fine with just an IP address.

Cheers

Smokes · 19 Jan 2006 at 09:45

Ok so its appears to be working from most mail servers but have just had a call to say that one email has been bounced because because the MX record contains an ip address and not a domain name

Cuchulain - if I create another A record mx.domain.com that points to the static IP address, then use mx.domain.com as the MX record, will that work?

Burbleflop · 19 Jan 2006 at 09:48

Smokes said:
if I create another A record mx.domain.com that points to the static IP address, then use mx.domain.com as the MX record, will that work?

Yep.

Smokes · 19 Jan 2006 at 11:35

Ok while I've got your attention, how would I go about setting up a backup mx record? So if for instance their broadband line goes down, the mail gets sent to a backup pop3 box hosted elsewhere.

Is it a case of setting another A record up to point to another host with a pop 3 box, then adding another mx record to point to that with a priority of say 10, so it would read

MX 10 backupmx.domain.com

TIA

Burbleflop · 19 Jan 2006 at 11:42

Just add another MX record with a higher cost then the primary one. Something like:

mycompany.com. IN MX 10 mail.mycompany.com
mycompany.com. IN MX 20 mail.anothercompany.com

would do the trick. The higher the cost, the less favourable the mail server will become.

Smokes · 19 Jan 2006 at 12:55

Excellent, thanks very much