Topic: DNS not resolving MX

[David W]

I have my SME 5.1.2 box set up as "Server Only" serving 3 domians. aaaa.com bbbb.com and members.bbbb.com. Members.bbbb.com is a https site. aaaa.com is the primary site. Heres the problem, I have a Windows box at a different site with the domain home.aaaa.com. When I try to send mail to that domain I get undeliverables. I've tried my ISP's DNS on the E-smith box and with no dns address listed and have the same problem. Is the e-smith box looking at the home.aaaa.com as being local? A nslookup on the box says its using the loop back and can not find the domain. On the same network I have a NT4 Srv box that has no problem resolving the name. Whats going on?

David

[David W]

All so the home.aaaa.com box is a windows box running Exchnage 2k

[JB]

I'm just reaching here, but if you go to the server-manager panel and look at hostnames and addresses, do you have a listing for mail.xxx.com that points to your SME box?  If so, since mail is not be be received at the SME box, try removing that entry and see if the server will then pick up the correct MX record and deliver the mail to the correct mail server.

GL,

JB

[David W]

The SME box is handling mail for aaaa.com, so I can't remove the alias Mail. Thats kind of what  I'm wondering though. Since I have mail.aaaa.com being handled locally is this interfering with home.aaaa.com? Is SME thinking this is a subdomain being handled locally? The home.aaaa.com is at a different site and a different Network.

[David W]

The SME box is handling mail for aaaa.com, so I can't remove the alias Mail. Thats kind of what  I'm wondering though. Since I have mail.aaaa.com being handled locally is this interfering with home.aaaa.com? Is SME thinking this is a subdomain being handled locally? The home.aaaa.com is at a different site and a different Network.

[jb]

Is DNS running on the NT server?  It's probably set up to query DNS from outside sources which is why this is working.  The SME server is running DNS itself so it queries itself first, and is probably failing.  From the SME console, can you ping home.aaaa.com?  It would appear that you could not from the SME box.

I only have one other idea, could you create a new hostname of home.aaaa.com and set that to be a remote location and put in the correct IP address.  I'm not positive that would work for mail, though.  Also not sure if that is available with 5.12, I am trying to reference this with a 5.5 and 5.6 beta 7 server.

JB

[David W]

That worked!
Added the host, set it as "remote" with the remote IP.
All is well in Georgia!

Thanks JB

[David W]

One more thing JB,
You said you were using 5.5 and 5.6. Did you upgrade or Fresh install.
I have a few of addons and secure virtual domains that i would hate to have to set back up. Is 5.5 or 5.6 worth the upgrade at this point?

[JB]

David,

Glad that worked for you.

I'm not a big Linux guru.  I upgraded to 5.5 just to get to imp 3.0.  It is a much better improvement than 2.x.  I support my step fathers busines, and some of them were using webmail, so I wanted to give them a better product.  I keep the SME box at home so I can support them and doodle around.  Personally, I keep a Novell server at home.  Hardly any security bulletins and no one is really looking to hack it.

I upgraded their business server, and had some minor quirks with accessing server-manager.  If I do it again, I'll do a fresh install, then restore.  That seems to work better.  I also had some custom scripts that I put together, and it was a pain when doing a fresh install, but I think I'd rather do that and just apply the scripts again.  Just my opinion.

I downloaded the 5.6 beta to see if I noticed anything different.  It is using the 2.4x Kernel, but I don't really know what that gives me.  I just wanted to load it and get a look at it.  Looks, acts, and feels like 5.5 to me.

JB