Hi all,


I would like my email handled by one server, and all the rest by another. Heres what the record lookslike. What do I have to do to make it work.
Please note that the real domain name and IPS have been changed. But htis will not affect the way to do it.



; Zone File for domain.net
@ 14400 IN SOA dns1.namesever.net. root.dns1.nameserver.net. (
1005585182
28800
7200
3600000
86400
)

domain.net. 14400 IN NS dns1.nameserver.net.
domain.net. 14400 IN NS dns2.nameserver.net.
domain.net. 14400 IN A 123.123.123.123

localhost.domain.net. 14400 IN A 127.0.0.1

domain.net. 14400 IN MX 0 domain.net.

mail 14400 IN CNAME domain.net.
www 14400 IN CNAME domain.net.
ftp 14400 IN CNAME domain.net.



The server to handle email would be 123.123.123.123 and the server to handle the rest (ftp ssh etc) would be 999.999.999.999

Anyhelp would be great.

<edit>
Also, would there be any other changes to make besides DNS(remove or add domains from localdomains etc)
</edit>

I would personally just use A instead of CNAME for most of your records.

Try this:

domain.net. 14400 IN MX 10 123.123.123.123
domain.net. 14400 IN A 999.999.999.999 (?)
www 14400 IN A 999.999.999.999
ftp 14400 IN A 999.999.999.999
ssh 14400 IN A 999.999.999.999
etc...

To add a backup mail server, just do a

domain.net. 14400 IN MX 20 234.234.234.234

You can use hostnames if you want, instead of IPs. It's could be easier for management, just depends on what you are doing.

Once your DNS zone file is updated, run "host <hostname>" or "host <domain.net>" (BSD/Linux) and see what mail server is handling that hostname or domain's mail.

so how would it look if i used A instead of CNAME?

How would what look? The zone file? I used A instead of CNAME above, and you used CNAME instead of A above that. :)

Should mail be an A or CNAME?

OK, heres what I did. Your way didnt seem to work, so what I did is create an additional zone called mail.domain.net and set the MX to

domain.net. 14400 IN MX 10 mail.domain.net.

That worked.


Thanks for the ideas anyway

Originally posted by LinuxGroup
Should mail be an A or CNAME?

Make sure that your mail.domain.com is set to a A record.. NOT an IP or CNAME Record. Otherwise it will not work.

IE.

mail.domain.com. IN A 123.123.123.123
domain.com IN MX mail.domain.com.

WHats the diff between A and CNAME

Originally posted by LinuxGroup
WHats the diff between A and CNAME

A records are used to resolve domains to IP addresses. CNAME records are used to resolve domain names to other domain names. PTR records are used to resolve IP addresses back to domain names (if you don't own your own IP netblock, then chances are it won't work from the outside).

Hope this helps.

Thanks :stickout

The crux of the matter is the MX settings.
You need to have multiple MX records with different priorities.
e.g.
IN MX 0 mail.domain.com.
IN MX 5 mail1.domain.com.
IN MX 10 mail2.domain.com.

Have a great day :)

Regards
amar

Originally posted by remarkable


Make sure that your mail.domain.com is set to a A record.. NOT an IP or CNAME Record. Otherwise it will not work.


God damn. That just plain wrong.

The whole fsckin' point of using a name like mail.domain.com is so that the REAL machine's name can be an A record while the pseudo name (mail, www, ftp) can be a CNAME. That way if you change servers you only change one setting (where mail.domain.com points). You have time on your side and none of your clients need to make changes.

-davidu

Originally posted by DavidU


God damn. That just plain wrong.

-davidu

OK.. I mis-spoke. It will work except that you will not get mail from places like hotmail. Hotmail will reject/not send mail to domains have do not have their MX set to an A.

that is also false.

however, on the subject of hotmail. They violate an RFC by returning an nslookup response too long:

[davidu@scooby davidu]$ host hotmail.com
hotmail.com has address 64.4.54.7
hotmail.com has address 64.4.43.7
hotmail.com has address 64.4.44.7
hotmail.com has address 64.4.45.7
hotmail.com has address 64.4.52.7
hotmail.com has address 64.4.53.7
hotmail.com mail is handled (pri=10) by mc5.law13.hotmail.com
hotmail.com mail is handled (pri=10) by mc6.law13.hotmail.com
hotmail.com mail is handled (pri=10) by mc7.law13.hotmail.com
hotmail.com mail is handled (pri=10) by mc4.law5.hotmail.com
hotmail.com mail is handled (pri=10) by mc5.law5.hotmail.com
hotmail.com mail is handled (pri=10) by mc6.law5.hotmail.com
hotmail.com mail is handled (pri=10) by mc7.law5.hotmail.com
hotmail.com mail is handled (pri=10) by mc1.law5.hotmail.com
hotmail.com mail is handled (pri=10) by mc2.law5.hotmail.com
hotmail.com mail is handled (pri=10) by mc1.law13.hotmail.com
hotmail.com mail is handled (pri=10) by mc2.law13.hotmail.com
hotmail.com mail is handled (pri=10) by mc3.law13.hotmail.com
hotmail.com mail is handled (pri=10) by mc4.law13.hotmail.com
[davidu@scooby davidu]$

They suck. ;-)