MX record question

[the_eclectic]

Hi guys.., just need help with this. i'm setting up a mail server on my pc behind my router, and i was wondering what i should set for mx record in my f2s dns details. Should it point to my wan ip address?
Thanks

[aos101]

I think it has to be a hostname and not an IP address, so you should set it to a hostname that points to your IP address. You could use the hostname F2S give you connection (do a reverse DNS lookup on your IP at DNS Stuff for this) or create a subdomain for your domain (an A record - perhaps something like mail.domain.com) that points to your IP address and use that for the MX record.

[the_eclectic]

If i got u correctly, on my f2s user page, my mx record should be in the form of i-xx-xx-xx-xx.freedom2surf.net and not the ip address itself. i just did that now. thanks. secondly, it requested for a weighted entry. i hope the value 1 is ok.

[aos101]

Yeah thats right in the format i-xx-xx-xx-xx.freedom2surf.net. The weight/priority you give the MX record doesn't really matter unless you have more than 1 MX record, because servers will first connect to the mail server with the lowest weight.

[the_eclectic]

cool..now here is another problem. i believe the mx record does not necessarily need to be updated before i can begin to send mail. i set up my mail server with my router's ip address as the dns server, setup up my mail client(thunderbird) to use my pc's ip address (192.168.0.2)as both pop3 and smtp servers, did the usual port forwarding to necessary ports on my router(netgear dg834gt). but everytime i tried to send a mail to my hotmail/yahoo/f2s accounts, the mail get bounced back, not by the recipients but by my own mail server. any clues please?

[aos101]

Don't really know why. Does it give a reason why the message was bounced, or is there anything in the email server logs that might help?

[the_eclectic]

i tried sending an email to myself and i got this message

The recipient femiodulaja@f2s.com had permanent fatal errors.

While talking to 194.106.56.142:

553 5.1.8 <femiodulaja@f2s.com>... Domain of sender address femiodulaja@paradigmshiftpictures.com does not exist

[the_eclectic]

my little understanding is that smtp server does not require the mx record. its only for actual receiving of mail, but i can understand why its saying the sender address does not exist

[aos101]

I would guess it might be because there is currently no MX record on your domain, so perhaps try it again tomorrow when the DNS servers will have updated. Karl Prince would probably be able to help with this when he's online.

[the_eclectic]

u might be right, cos i just changed my f2s smtp setting from outmail.f2s.com to my internal smtp server and i was able to send mails sucessfully. will wait till tomorrow..thanks

[John]

If you still have problems let me know as I have got 2 mail servers set up over my connection and they work fine. The run on Server 2003 with Mail Enable as the mail part on them and they work fine.

[the_eclectic]

hi John,
will like if u can go thru my settings

f2s user page- dns entry for mydomain.com:
mydomain.com mx= i-xx-xx-xx-xxx.freedom2surf.net
www.mydomain.com cname= serverxxxx.freedom2surf.net

on router, i forwarded port 25,110,143 to my pc's ip address-192.168.0.2

on mailserver(argosoft mailserver), this are the settings
dns:192.168.0.1(my router)
allw relay is checked
local host: mydomain.com
user: myname@mydomain.com
smtp=25, pop3=110, imap=143, disabled finger
logging enabled
perfom reverse lookup at connection checked
created alias mydomain.com, created username@mydomain.com

on my email client(thunderbird)
created new account
smtp=192.168.0.2:25
pop3=192.168.0.2:110

I think it might be working now cos i've sent some mails to my work address and it got delivered, but it wont go thru to either my yahoo or hotmail address
I still cannot get email delivered to my username@mydomain.com

every help will be appreciated. first time of actually setting up any kind of mailserver.

[John]

My DNS settings are as follows:
An A Record, the name = mail and target IP = 83.67.*.*
An MX Record, priority = 1, target hostname = mail
If yours works like Easyspace does, you just enter mail (or what ever your server is called) as it adds the rest of the domain. If you enter all of your domain eg mail.yourdomain.com you need to put a full stop at the end of it eg mail.yourdomain.com.

[plesbit]

As a comparison, I run a mail server on a domain hosted by Metronet. The domain control panel enables me to create a subdomain called "mail" and specify the IP address. You then set a primary mail record to point to the mail subdomain. Different hosts do things slightly differently but it's all variations on the same theme.

[the_eclectic]

thanks guys. i think the settings i have is working now cos i have sent different mails from different accouts(yahoo, hotmail etc) to my mail server and its been delivered. i think the problem might have been with my mx record not been updated when i was trying it. the A record thing is still a little bit cloudy but i guess i just have to read up on the fundamentals.