[solved] We didn't find a server (A Record) behind your hostname

[brinkie]

I'm trying to setup a DA installation on a Hetzner VPS (for testing purposes). Moved my own private blog over there from my own server and set it all up. There's one weird thing I see when using the email (no matter if I use roundcube or my mailprogram) when I send email and test it at mail-tester.com.

It gives the following error:

We didn't find a server (A Record) behind your hostname vps.bitwebhosting.nl.
We check if there is a server (A Record) behind your hostname vps.bitwebhosting.nl.
You may want to publish a DNS record (A type) for the hostname vps.bitwebhosting.nl or use a different hostname in your mail software.

Of course I made sure the hostname was set. Even removed it and used the 'old' method for adding it, reboot the VPS. To no avail.
Any tips or suggestions what I might be missing out on here?

Mailtester results

Spam Test Result

You sent us an email? Check here if it passed our tests

www.mail-tester.com

Haven't seen this issue before and have searched the forum and google of course but haven't found a clear answer for this.

 

[ikkeben]

TTL time for resolving dns ns settings.....

a online dns checker could help a bit there

 

[Richard G]

It's indeed the TTL time to sync through worldwide DNS.
I've just looked at intodns.com and there everything was fine. Worldwide synching can take up to 72 hours. Mostly though around 4 hours it's already done.

 

[brinkie]

Thanks for the reply's. It is now even worse though. Score went down to 5.9

I did checks yesterday (and today) using MXToolbox and DNS Checker. Lowered the TTL but that should have been done on the old server beforehand I guess.. Oh I'll just have to give it some time I hope.

 

[brinkie]

Issue solved. Posting here what I did, for others that might one day have the issue.

After a lot of searching I decided: let's try setting a different hostname in DA, saved it. DA restarted, and low and behold.. it is now working correct.
At the moment the rDNS isn't yet updated (did change it, takes time of course) but mail-tester is finally happy. And so am I.

 

[autoscale]

Issue solved. Posting here what I did, for others that might one day have the issue.

After a lot of searching I decided: let's try setting a different hostname in DA, saved it. DA restarted, and low and behold.. it is now working correct.
At the moment the rDNS isn't yet updated (did change it, takes time of course) but mail-tester is finally happy. And so am I.Hi

Hi Brinkie, can you clarify what you mean by "hostname" -- thanks for clarifying

 

[Richard G]

that might one day have the issue.

It's just very odd that this is happening, your hostname looks good and there is no reason to have issues with it.
Maybe changing the hostname just updated the approriate records again. I hope it wasn't a cloudflare issue. But this is something which normallyl does not happen.

Anyway, good to read it's working now as designed. An rDNS doesn't take that long to update by the way. Within the hour normally (often sooner).

what you mean by "hostname"

If you are an admin, you should know what a hostname is.
You might like to check this post (the one with the 70 votes).

What is the difference between a hostname and a fully qualified domain name?

I am new to the world of setting up servers and am baffled by the term hostname and fully qualified domain name (FQDN). For example, if I want to set up a server that hosts files on the local netwo...

serverfault.com

 

[autoscale]

It's just very odd that this is happening, your hostname looks good and there is no reason to have issues with it.
Maybe changing the hostname just updated the approriate records again. I hope it wasn't a cloudflare issue. But this is something which normallyl does not happen.

Anyway, good to read it's working now as designed. An rDNS doesn't take that long to update by the way. Within the hour normally (often sooner).


If you are an admin, you should know what a hostname is.
You might like to check this post (the one with the 70 votes).

What is the difference between a hostname and a fully qualified domain name?

I am new to the world of setting up servers and am baffled by the term hostname and fully qualified domain name (FQDN). For example, if I want to set up a server that hosts files on the local netwo...

serverfault.com

Hi Richard, I appreciate the article. I think the solution most of all is confusing me, because it's not clear why the hostname is affecting rDNS --
I know what he's talking about -- he tested on mail-tester.com, as did I -- and I got the same result as him. I didn't realize the hostname has to be the sending/server domain, maybe i'm not understanding rDNS but from what I knew, it didn't work that way.

 

[Richard G]

because it's not clear why the hostname is affecting rDNS

That is because the rDNS (also called PTR record) has to point to the sending server in most cases. The servers uses a hostname, so yes then the hostname affects the rDNS.
When domains have dedicated ip addresses this might be different, but also Exim customisation is required in that case.

What is confusing me, is that (if I understood correctly) he had vps.domain.com as hostname and the rDNS ip also set to vps.domain.com so then all should be fine.

I do know however that mail-tester only gives a slight minus value for not having the rDNS pointing to the correct hostname. It only checks if there is a rDNs/PTR present.
But several bigger systems put mail in spam or even just refuse mail if the rDNS is absent or pointing wrongly.