Topic: change domain/disable email

[dwater]

Hi,

How can I change the domain of my SME server?

We have only recently obtained a public ip address (although it is dynamic), and so I would like to change the domain from the one we used while it was private [1], to the new one hosted at yi.org.

I would also like to disable the email function of SME server. I found some posts on disabling the email proxy and I've done that - is that enough? Can I easily turn off the email web interface and leave the other web pages on?

Can someone tell me how best to do this?

Thanks!

Max.

[1] we own the domain name, but we won't want to use it for this server.

[raem]

dwater

Log in as admin and run Configure this server

Install the services control contrib, disbable mail retrieval and mail transport
You probably won't receive admin emails anymore though.

Be careful what else you turn off as you may lock yourself out of server manager

[dwater]

dwater

Log in as admin and run Configure this server

Install the services control contrib, disbable mail retrieval and mail transport
You probably won't receive admin emails anymore though.

Be careful what else you turn off as you may lock yourself out of server manager

Hrm. Having thought about this some more and let the issue fester until it has become more urgent (isn't that the way it's supposed to work ), I think the real issue I am asking about is this :

The email for our domain is handled by an email ISP on the internet. On our internal network, the SME server is claiming it is handling the email for our domain. It is overriding the MX record for our domain. I would like to disable it from doing that.

I would like to still receive admin email messages though - so, I guess I still want email enabled, but for the SME host alone, not for the whole domain.

Does this make any sense?

Max.

[raem]

dwater

Get whoever controls your domain records to change the MX record to forward email for your domain to your ISP and point everything else at your sme server IP.

Your sme mail server will only work for local messages or outgoing messages depending on how you configure your server & email clients.

[dwater]

dwater

Get whoever controls your domain records to change the MX record to forward email for your domain to your ISP and point everything else at your sme server IP.

That's already done.

Your sme mail server will only work for local messages or outgoing messages depending on how you configure your server & email clients.

I don't think this is true. What if :

1) We have another email server on the intranet. How can that send to addresses in my domain? They will look up an MX record for my domain and the SME server will say it is the host.
2) Almost all smtp servers bounce messages from our intranet - perhaps because the ISP providing our internet connection is also used by many spammers/open relays, or admins have blindly blocked email originating from China.

I really think I need to stop SME advertising itself as the MX for our domain. Is this not possible?

Max.

[raem]

dwater

> Get whoever controls your domain records to change > the MX record to forward email for your domain to > your ISP and point everything else at your sme
> server IP.

>> That's already done.

>> I really think I need to stop SME advertising
>> itself as the MX for our domain. Is this not
>> possible?

I don't follow you now, how can the MX record already be pointing at your ISP and also pointing at your sme server ?

[dwater]

dwater

> Get whoever controls your domain records to change > the MX record to forward email for your domain to > your ISP and point everything else at your sme
> server IP.

>> That's already done.

>> I really think I need to stop SME advertising
>> itself as the MX for our domain. Is this not
>> possible?

I don't follow you now, how can the MX record already be pointing at your ISP and also pointing at your sme server ?

Hosts on the internet (eventually) use a DNS server on the internet to resolve the MX record. That DNS server is set to advertise another internet host as the MX record.
However, hosts on our intranet use our local SME server as a DNS server. It thinks it is the destination for mail and so sets the MX record to point to itself, effectively overriding the MX record setting on the internet.

Max.

[raem]

dwater

My understanding is that your domain name maintainer configures your records to (usually) point all requests for your domain (be it mail http, ftp etc) to your sme server public IP. The server (usually) handles all requests including mail.

You are asking for the mail to be handled by your ISP's mail server and are talking about changing the MX records to make it so. In that case you get the MX record configured by whoever hosts your domain records, to send mail to your ISP and send all other requests to your sme server.

Perhaps you really want this though.
If you want a different server to handle the mail part of those services, then it seems to me that you shouldn't be mucking with MX records but more simply set up the Delegate mail server in server manager Email panel and put your ISP's mail server IP in there. Read the manual.

But you also seem to be asking for email functionality on your local sme server. I assume you want to use the same main domain name for your sme servers domain name, and that then is a problem, you cannot have 2 mail servers acting for the same domain.

Can you be somewhat more explicit about what you are really trying to achieve here and give examples of what domain names you are using and where they are used.

[dwater]

Can you be somewhat more explicit about what you are really trying to achieve here and give examples of what domain names you are using and where they are used.

OK, since I don't seem to have explained the situation well enough.

Our domain is 'jingmei.org'.

We previously did not have a public IP address (we had a private/static), so I chose a sensible host and domain name.

The hostname of the SME server is 'truth.jingmei.org', and the overall domain is 'jingmei.org'.

We have since changed our internet connection ISP to one that gives us a public/dynamic IP address (like DSL, but it is a MAN), so I wanted to make use of that for testing. I set it up to update an A record on yi.org (actually, a few of them) - they are all subdomains of yi.org - eg jingmei.yi.org.

The A records for the 'real' jingmei.org domain are in the process of being manipulated to point at a 3rd party. They will handle web and email for the jingmei.org domain. So, http://www.jingmei.org/ will come from them, and email sent to anyone@jingmei.org will go to their server too.

Of course, this screws with the SME 'idea' that it is handling everything for it's domain.

Ideally, I would like to just change the domain to the 'yi'org' one. I'm not sure exactly what that would effect. The SMB 'domain' is different - it's "LDI" - so I don't need to change that (I suppose my reluctance to change the domainname comes from the difficulty in changing the SMB 'domain').

The immediate problem is just that I want to stop the DNS server on the SME server from advertising itself as handling the mail for jingmei.org.

It's name is truth.jingmei.org and I want it to still handle email for that domain - ie mail sent to/from anyone@truth.jingmei.org. Specifically, I would like it to forward root@jingmei.org (etc) to my own email address.

Does this make anything clearer?

Any recommendations? I know it's become a bit of a mess now, but it is still a live system which, on the whole, does actually work, so I would like to not risk breaking it.

Thanks.

Max.

[dwater]

Did any of that make sense?

Any further advice? How to stop SME's from providing an MX record for it's domain?

I tried delegating the domain in the server-manager, but it didn't make any difference to the MX record. The text alongside the form seems to suggest it is for internal mail servers, but I don't think that makes any difference - even if I set it to an internal address, the MX record doesn't change.

Max.

[raem]

dwater

I don't think your concept that the sme server provides the MX record for your domain is correct.
The MX record is configured by whoever hosts your domain records and that is external to your sme server. DNS and MX are different things, your sme server is a DNS server.

You say "I tried delegating the domain in the server-manager, but it didn't make any difference to the MX record."

Where are you expecting to see a change in the MX record ?

[raem]

dwater

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=MX+records&meta=

[dwater]

dwater

I don't think your concept that the sme server provides the MX record for your domain is correct.

OK, though I think it is correct. As evidence, I log into the SME server and run :

$ dig -t mx jingmei.org

; <<>> DiG 9.2.1 <<>> -t mx jingmei.org
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 229
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;jingmei.org.                   IN      MX

;; ANSWER SECTION:
jingmei.org.            86400   IN      MX      0 truth.jingmei.org.

;; Query time: 25 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.189.1#53(192.168.189.1)
;; WHEN: Wed Aug 10 12:38:09 2005
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 51

Which says it is providing the mail service for the jingmei.org domain. It's name is truth.jingmei.org, and it's private address is 192.168.189.1, which, of course, wouldn't do much good on the internet anyway.

The MX record is configured by whoever hosts your domain records and that is external to your sme server. DNS and MX are different things, your sme server is a DNS server.

OK, though I disagree. MX is part of DNS, as evidence I would supply :

http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/lookup.ch?name=jingmei.org&type=MX

which says that, on the internet, it points to m1.dnsix.com (which is another problem), not 192.168.189.1 or truth.jingmei.org.

You say "I tried delegating the domain in the server-manager, but it didn't make any difference to the MX record."

Where are you expecting to see a change in the MX record ?

I'm not sure 'expecting' is the right word. "Hoping", perhaps.

Max.

[raem]

dwater

I'm a novice myself re DNS & MX records but.....
Did you read any of the search links I provided for you ?

>...Which says it is providing the mail service for the jingmei.org domain.

The MX record is different to the mail service. Of course your local sme server is providing the mail service for whatever domain it is configured to be (as long as the external MX record points to that server).

Yes the MX record is part of the external DNS record and bascially tells mail which mail server to go to.
So your above example says that mail sent to jingmei.org does in fact go to truth.jingmei.org

You seem to be saying that you don't want that and that is why I am saying you need to change the MX record to point to your ISP's mail server.
 

>....DNS and MX are different things, your sme
> server is a DNS server.

Depends whether we are talking about DNS servers or DNS records, obviously I meant DNS server while you meant record.

> I'm not sure 'expecting' is the right
> word. "Hoping", perhaps.

You still don't say where you are expecting to see a change, do you expect that by changing some setting on your sme server that the external MX record is going to change, if so that's not correct. You need to contact whoever hosts your DNS & MX records & get them to change it or do it online if you have an account/access.

If I have it wrong please correct me, as I said I'm a novice...

[dwater]

dwater

I'm a novice myself re DNS & MX records but.....
Did you read any of the search links I provided for you ?

yeah, well, I don't consider myself to be a novice on DNS or MX record. I'm not an expert, for sure, but I'm no novice. However, I looked at the first one google result, but it didn't seem to be telling me anything I didn't already know, so I didn't look at any of the others.

>...Which says it is providing the mail service for the jingmei.org domain.

The MX record is different to the mail service.

The MX record is telling everyone who asks where to deliver mail. Sure, it is different, but they are directly related.

Of course your local sme server is providing the mail service for whatever domain it is configured to be (as long as the external MX record points to that server).

Quite. It is this 'of course' that I am trying to stop.

Yes the MX record is part of the external DNS record and bascially tells mail which mail server to go to.
So your above example says that mail sent to jingmei.org does in fact go to truth.jingmei.org

You seem to be saying that you don't want that and that is why I am saying you need to change the MX record to point to your ISP's mail server.

Sure, but I am saying that this delegation thing isn't working, and that I would rather it didn't override the internet DNS setting and just forward the MX query to the next upstream server, like it does most other requests.

>....DNS and MX are different things, your sme
> server is a DNS server.

Depends whether we are talking about DNS servers or DNS records, obviously I meant DNS server while you meant record.

OK, fine, but MX is a DNS record. It's not an A record, but it is a record all the same.

> I'm not sure 'expecting' is the right
> word. "Hoping", perhaps.

You still don't say where you are expecting to see a change, do you expect that by changing some setting on your sme server that the external MX record is going to change, if so that's not correct.

Nope. I'm saying that the SME server is resolving the MX query itself. I want it to just forward the request to the next upstream DNS server which will, eventually, respond with the name given to the rest of the internet.

You need to contact whoever hosts your DNS & MX records & get them to change it or do it online if you have an account/access.

I do that already. I want the SME server to stop resolving the MX query itself and forward the request to an upstream DNS server. I don't mind it caching it, but I don't want it to think it knows 'best', which, of course, it thinks now, since it thinks it is hosting everything for that domain.

I sense an upcoming weekend being wasted experimenting with reconfiguring the server - can't do that while it's live, of course (

Max.