MX Record - request for advice

C

chipster

Verified User
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
6
Hi there.

I would like to set up one of my domains so that the email for the domain is delivered directly to the server on site. I haven't done this before, and as it's a live server I would like to ask if anyone would be able to give me a couple of pointers.

Would it be possible to set this up so that in the event of the onsite server going down for any length of time, that the current server (that is the host server running direct admin) will then act as a backup ?

I did have a look in the forum and read help, but it isn't exactly clear. I can see that it would seem to be a question of creating a new mx record in email - or do a edit the existing A record for mail.mydomain.com ?

I am sure it's straightforward, so again, any help appreciated.

By the way, the onsite server is MS Windows Small Business Server 2003. I have a statefull firewall going in to filter spam and virus, and port 25 is open to the server.


Many thanks in advance for any and all help.

NM
 
OK; lack of response here, so I am asking again with hopefully a bit more chance of response...

The help file states:

"If you wish to use an external Mailserver, a few changes will need to be made.

1) Go to User Panel -> domain.com -> Email -> MX Records

There should be an option for "Local Mail Server". Uncheck that option.

2) You'll need to change the MX dns record to point to the external mailserver. Remove the "mail" MX record and add "other.domain.com." as the new MX record where that is the domain of the other server.

So I delete the existing mail mx record. But then if I create a new mx record, what should it be ? I have an A record for the server, server.mydomain.com already in place. So should the mx record now be "server.mydomain.com." type=mx, value= 10.

And as long as I have unchecked the box for this being a local mail server, is that enough ?

-Thanks again in advance for any help on this.

-NM
 
The MX record shouldn't resolve to an IP#; it should resolve to a FQDN that resolves to an IP# on the server you want to receive the mail. So yes, you can use the mx record as you suggest.

To allow your server to act as failover MX you need to make some changes; there's an article on it somewhere in the knowledgebase.

Jeff
 
Thanks for the advice.

Here's what I found - when I changed the MX record to be the fqdn of my mail server, (which had an A record entry for its IP address) everything went fine and mail hit the server, all well.

I tried a second scenario where I changed the MX record to point to a commercial spam scrubbing service, which would get the mail and then remove spam, then forward it to the direct admin server. My exchange server would then pop the direct admin server.

However, with this set up, the direct admin server rejected incoming mail.

Does anyone have any advice how to solve this ?

Many thanks,

NM
 
Thanks, Jeff.

Where would I find the logs ? (excuse my ignorance, it's quite new to me).

Thanks,

NM
 
/var/log/exim

But first check how/where you changed the MX record and how your spam scrubbing sends the email back to you.

You should change the MX to point to your spam scrubber, but you still have to have local email enabled on your server.

Jeff
 
Jeff -

Many thanks, I think you have got that exactly right. I have backtracked what I changed, and I beleive that through all the testing, the box for this server handling the mail was unticked.

I am really grateful for the help and support. Unfortunately, in this case the project has been cancelled, so I won't get a chance to try again on this scenario for now, though I will see if I can rig a test and confirm it.

I will report back as appropriate.

NM
 
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