[TriLUG] Postfix Woes

[Aaron Bockover]

Excellent. I've made the addition, and am sitting here anxiously,
waiting for it to propagate :)

I picked up the "Postfix" book, and have been reading through that. This
is definitely new ground, but slowly it's starting to become clear.

Thanks,
Aaron

On Wed, 2005-04-13 at 09:44 -0400, Aaron S. Joyner wrote:
> Aaron Bockover wrote:
> 
> >Oooh! This may not be a total Postfix issue after all. The name servers
> >for my domain (rmmp.org) are at ZoneEdit. I have an MX record set to
> >mail.rmmp.org. 
> >
> >When I telnet to rmmp.org (25 or 26, depending on what network I'm
> >behind), I can talk with the SMTP server. However, when I try to get to
> >mail.rmmp.org, I get a host not found. I'm hoping this is where the
> >problem is. Seems quite likely.
> >
> >In ZoneEdit, under my MX config for the domain, I have:
> >
> >mail.rmmp.org "handles mail" 1st "for domain" rmmp.org
> >
> >For the IP (A) records, I have rmmp.org and www.rmmp.org pointing to the
> >IP address of the server. Do I also need a mail.rmmp.org A record mapped
> >to an IP address? My initial thoughts that were since mail.rmmp.org
> >"handles mail" for rmmp.org, and rmmp.org has an A record, I wouldn't
> >need one explicitly for mail.rmmp.org. I'm going to give this a shot,
> >but still don't know if it's correct.
> >  
> >
> Your thinking is correct.  You need an A record for mail.rmmp.org in 
> order for your setup to work.  The MX record simply defines which A 
> record handles mail for which domain.  I.e. if I send mail to 
> foo at rmmp.org, it looks at the MX record for rmmp.org to find out which A 
> record to contact with the message.  If no MX record exists, it looks 
> for an A record for rmmp.org.  So alternately, you could remove the MX 
> record, but using an MX is generally the preferred way of handling 
> things, as it's more explicit.  The additional functionality that MX 
> records allow (load balancing, priority-based fail overs, mail handling 
> separate from the machine actually listed as the root of the domain, 
> etc) probably isn't necessary in your setup, but it's good to understand 
> and get comfortable with.  :)
> 
> Aaron S. Joyner