DNS Report shows success now because I added the root MX record, so that zone now has both MX records (pointing to the same mail server). As for why we didn't just do that to begin with: we did what the client told us to do. I viewed this (only having an MX record named "mail") as just fine, as long as they were always careful to reference mail.salemradiology.com (in email addressing, for example), rather than just using salemradiology.com. However, the thing that keeps bothering me now is why DNS Report only expects a root MX record, and not a named MX record. If this is just a matter of convention, as I always believed, then they should be able to handle it both ways. If, however, I'm just ignorant and the root record is somehow special, then I need to be more aware of this to avoid future problems. So how much of this is Standards, and how much is just convention?
Ben ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Barker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, July 01, 2005 3:34 PM Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] OT: mx record is there, yet isn't > Maybe DNSReport had your old values cached. It's reporting success now. Most > MX records look like: > > @ MX 5 mail.visioncomm.net. > > Your's evidentally looks like > > mail MX 5 smtpgw.slmdc.pnwtg.com. > > > Unless there is ALSO an > > @ MX 5 somewhereelse.domain.tld, > > why wouldn't you just put > > @ MX 5 smtpgw.slmdc.pnwtg.com. > > in your zone file? It would be far less confusing. > > Although DNS Report is showing the records now happily, and dig certainly > will dig (har har) them out, plain ole windoze nslookup doesn't show the MX > record unless you include the "mail.". Is this by design? IE: Mail to > salemradiology.com is supposed to be undeliverable and mail to > mail.salemradiology.com is supposed to work? I don't think so<g>. If not, > then putting the MX record at the root (@ in DNSspeak) will work for both of > them. (If both exist): > > > @ MX 5 smtpgw.slmdc.pnwtg.com. > mail CNAME smtpgw.slmdc.pnwtg.com. > > or > > @ MX 5 smtpgw.slmdc.pnwtg.com. > mail A 66.224.124.100 > > Dan Barker > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Imail Admin > Sent: Friday, July 01, 2005 6:02 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [IMail Forum] OT: mx record is there, yet isn't > > > Well, I think everyone's got the same point, but Sandy probably says it > best. We have a single MX record for the host "mail" in that zone. We do > not have an MX record for a root host (one that does not have a name) for > the same zone. So when we do a lookup on the mail MX record, we see it. > However, apparently DNS Report only looks for the root record, which doesn't > exist in this case. Sandy calls this a "restriction", I would call it a > bug. > > I am not (not even close to being) a DNS expert, but some of the other > replies posted do not fit with my understanding of the DNS setup. The host > "mail" is not a subdomain, it's a host. And the record that has 'no name' > is a "root" host, but it's still a host, and not a subdomain. There is only > one domain/zone, and that's salemradiology.com. The rest are records for > hosts within that domain. At leat, I always considered hosts and subdomains > to be different animals. So I expected that DNS Report would look through > all the records in this zone, looking for any MX records, and identifying > those as mail servers; instead, it only looked for a "root" host mail > server. It's kind of like assuming that a web site name must start with a > "www."; that's the common usage, but it is not required. > > If I'm wrong in this understand, I'd love to hear it. And thanks for all of > the replies; all let our clients know that the best way to fix this is to > simply add that root MX record. > > Ben > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Sanford Whiteman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "IMail Admin" <[email protected]> > Sent: Friday, July 01, 2005 12:07 PM > Subject: Re[2]: [IMail Forum] OT: mx record is there, yet isn't > > > > > Why doesn't it see this mx record? > > > > It's a restriction of DNS Report, which only works on standalone > > zones, not hosts within those zones. The records are accessible via > > dig, et al. > > > > > http://us.mirror.menandmice.com/cgi-bin/DoDig?host=4.2.2.1&domain=mail.salem > radiology.com&type=MX&recur=on > > > > --Sandy > > > > > > ------------------------------------ > > Sanford Whiteman, Chief Technologist > > Broadleaf Systems, a division of > > Cypress Integrated Systems, Inc. > > e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > SpamAssassin plugs into Declude! > > > http://www.imprimia.com/products/software/freeutils/SPAMC32/download/release > / > > > > Defuse Dictionary Attacks: Turn Exchange or IMail mailboxes into IMail > Aliases! > > > http://www.imprimia.com/products/software/freeutils/exchange2aliases/downloa > d/release/ > > > http://www.imprimia.com/products/software/freeutils/ldap2aliases/download/re > lease/ > > > > > > To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html > > List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ > > Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ > > > > > To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html > List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ > Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ > > > To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html > List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ > Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ > To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
