Email Server Help On Redhat

[slightly_unpredictable]

Ok quick question i run a clark connect webserver, and i have my webmail setup with my smtp and pop servers running. i also have a domain. my problem is that i can send mail out to a test email address "yahoo" but when i send it back to my webserver it says that it cant find a mx exchange server or a ip address. ok in my dns settings for my domain i have "@ - ip and mail - ip" added under MX (Mail Exchangers). do i need to set up anything under CNAMES or A Host for this to work right? also i have a commercial account with my isp so all the mail ports are open. what am i doing wrong?

[David Scaife]

If you want to have mail sent to [email protected] sent to your server, then you have to have your server registered as yourdomain.com. It's not good enough to just have yourdomain.com as your domain in your server's settings, because no DNS servers know about it :)

If you have a static IP address, then by all means, make an A record for your domain (I'm assuming you already have a registrar by the language you used).

However, if you have a dynamic IP address then you'll need to set up a dynamic DNS service. I use DynDNS myself, but there are others like No-IP(.com) out there. There are a few things you might want to know about this though. Firstly, some mail servers block certain dynamic IP ranges (since dynamic IP's are usually used by home users, who are the most liable to have open relays). Secondly, if you have a domain name then you'll need to make a CNAME record to point to your dynamic dns service. The problem with CNAMES is that (last time I checked) they aren't great if you want to have MX backups. If this is just your own server and you don't need backups for when you have an outage for example, then that's not much of a problem.

I hope that answers your question :)

Edit: No-IP link killed by spam filter

[slightly_unpredictable]

If you want to have mail sent to [email protected] sent to your server, then you have to have your server registered as yourdomain.com. It's not good enough to just have yourdomain.com as your domain in your server's settings, because no DNS servers know about it :)

If you have a static IP address, then by all means, make an A record for your domain (I'm assuming you already have a registrar by the language you used).

However, if you have a dynamic IP address then you'll need to set up a dynamic DNS service. I use DynDNS myself, but there are others like No-IP(.com) out there. There are a few things you might want to know about this though. Firstly, some mail servers block certain dynamic IP ranges (since dynamic IP's are usually used by home users, who are the most liable to have open relays). Secondly, if you have a domain name then you'll need to make a CNAME record to point to your dynamic dns service. The problem with CNAMES is that (last time I checked) they aren't great if you want to have MX backups. If this is just your own server and you don't need backups for when you have an outage for example, then that's not much of a problem.

I hope that answers your question :)

Edit: No-IP link killed by spam filter

585236493[/snapback]

yes i have a static ip set up in my router. i know i did the no-ip when i had dynamic dns long ago but now i have a commercial account with my ISP and they gave me a static. So how would i go about setting that up for my mail to come to my linux box?

[slightly_unpredictable]

Do i just add an a record for my server like. servername.mydomain.org IP

or do i need to make it like mail.mydomain.com and point it to my server?

[David Scaife]

yes i have a static ip set up in my router. i know i did the no-ip when i had dynamic dns long ago but now i have a commercial account with my ISP and they gave me a static. So how would i go about setting that up for my mail to come to my linux box?

For starters, you need to get a domain registrar. I've only heard good things about GoDaddy, but there are many others to choose from. Check that the domain you want is available, and if so, register it :)

Edited January 5, 2005 by scaife

[slightly_unpredictable]

For starters, you need to get a domain registrar. I've only heard good things about GoDaddy, but there are many others to choose from. Check that the domain you want is available, and if so, register it :)

585236680[/snapback]

i do have a domain and i have it at godaddy.com. what do i need to add in my A Records or MX mail Records or CNAME Records to make it send my @domain.org mail to my mail server i have runnen?

[David Scaife]

I don't have GoDaddy.com as my registrar, so I can't tell you the specifics of how exactly to do it. It doesn't necessarily have to be mail.yourdomain.com. E.g. if you have mail sent to [email protected], then yourdomain.com needs to be pointing to your server's IP address.

Edited January 5, 2005 by scaife

[slightly_unpredictable]

I don't have GoDaddy.com as my registrar, so I can't tell you the specifics of how exactly to do it, but the minimum you would need is an A record pointing to your IP address for your domain. It doesn't necessarily have to be mail.yourdomain.com.

585236731[/snapback]

i do i have www.mydomain and like webserver.mydomain added to A record and they are resolving ok i can access my website witch runs on the same box as my webserver. but when i try to send a email to my @domain address from like a yahoo account it gives me this

"Sorry, I couldn't find a mail exchanger or IP address. (#5.4.4)" in a failure notice

[David Scaife]

Ah, so I was on the wrong track... I don't have any MX records set up for my domain and it doesn't receive this... so I'm wondering if you've got any MX records set up, because from what I've gathered, an incorrectly set up MX record could possibly cause this. Try running `dig domain.com`, that will show you all the DNS information for your domain (incl. MX records).

I've never enountered this particular error before, and so this advice is only what I think could help isolate the problem; somebody with more experience than I would be better to help you this.