Topic: E-mail Server Configuration

[Charles Emley]

Well, I am now up and running.  Only two small problems through the entire setup, and I am a *total* Linux novice.  What a cool product!  I am very happy to have had the good fortune to find a reference to your company.

The last issue is configuring my e-mail server.  My e-mail sent to the account I established is being returned, and my e-mail client cannot access the server.  The documentation says to point my e-mail account to "mail.yourdomain.com", which I have done.

I see many references to my ISP's DNS hosting my domain.  This may be the problem.  If I have registered my domain with Register.com, and it points to my server IP address, do I need to do *anything* with my ISP?  Do I need to register "mail.mydomain.com" with Register.com as well?

Thanks for any help!

[Charlie Brady]

Charles Emley wrote:

> Well, I am now up and running.  Only two small problems
> through the entire setup, and I am a *total* Linux novice.
> What a cool product!  I am very happy to have had the good
> fortune to find a reference to your company.

Glad to hear it!

> The last issue is configuring my e-mail server.  My e-mail
> sent to the account I established is being returned, and my
> e-mail client cannot access the server.  The documentation
> says to point my e-mail account to "mail.yourdomain.com",
> which I have done.

I'd just better check here - you have substituted your own
registered domain name for "yourdomain" there?

I'm not sure what account you have established, or where you tried to send mail from or to, so it is difficult to help.

> I see many references to my ISP's DNS hosting my domain.  This
> may be the problem.  If I have registered my domain with
> Register.com, and it points to my server IP address, do I need
> to do *anything* with my ISP?  Do I need to register
> "mail.mydomain.com" with Register.com as well?

I'm sorry, I don't know anything about register.com. But "a domain" is a whole set of things - including all of the subdomains of "your domain". So if you have registered mydomain.com, you don't also have to register mail.mydomain.com - it is already registered to you. But it isn't set up anywhere in DNS.

As you can already see, this can get complicated, so you need to do a lot of reading and/or get good advice. IMO, you are probably more likely to get good advice from your ISP than from register.com.

Best wishes

Charlie

[Charles Emley]

Yes, I used my actual, registered domain.  It's a rather irreverent choice (not pornographic, just very irreverent), so I have used "mydomain.com" as a substitute.

Register.com is a large domain register company, and they do provide DNS service.  I am able to see my homepage, with no problem and from anywhere on the web, so the webserver is working, and the DNS entries for my domain do exist.

However, mail to mail.mydomain.com is returned as undeliverable.  And when I ping mail.mydomain.com from my Windows PC connected to the e-smith gateway, I get an unknown host error.

How can I determine whether the mailserver is, in fact, running?  Also, I did not see anything in the e-smith documentation to configure the mail server as mail.mydomain.com (or any other name).  The only reference to that was on the mail *client* configuration.  Should I have specified the name somewhere, or is it done automatically?

Thanks.

[Geoff]

Charles Emley wrote:

> Yes, I used my actual, registered domain.  It's a rather
> irreverent choice (not pornographic, just very irreverent), so
> I have used "mydomain.com" as a substitute.

well you have to tell us what it is now.

> However, mail to mail.mydomain.com is returned as
> undeliverable.  And when I ping mail.mydomain.com from my
> Windows PC connected to the e-smith gateway, I get an unknown
> host error.

Ok, charlie explained this before but I think I can explain it more simply What he was saying is that you need to setup mail.mydomain.com to point to the IP address that you have your email server running on. I assume that since you are running E-Smith that the mail server is the same IP as the rest of your services. So you really don't need the mail.mydomain.com all you need to put for your mail server is mydomain.com this will work fine. That is how my mail server is running, and it works fine. The SMTP would be the same as the POP account.

> How can I determine whether the mailserver is, in fact,
> running?  Also, I did not see anything in the e-smith
> documentation to configure the mail server as mail.mydomain.com
> (or any other name).  The only reference to that was on the
> mail *client* configuration.  Should I have specified the name
> somewhere, or is it done automatically?

All that crap is done automatically

-geoff

[cryblood]

I have one more thing to add...

You do have to have what is called an MX record in your DNS...

...

I had a WONDERFUL time trying to figure all this out with my domain just a couple months ago.    it seems that NOBODY really knows much about where to go to learn how to get this crap going (meaning the DNS stuff, not the e-smith mail stuff)  but here's what I came up with.

for DNS to work for a web page you just create a DNS record.  Here is a peek into my "zone record":

localhost.cryblood.com. IN CNAME cryblood.com.
cryblood.com. IN A 216.227.68.33
www.cryblood.com. IN CNAME cryblood.com.

That gets you www etc.  Now on to mail!  DNS for e-mail is special (don't ask me why, I have no idea!)  You have to include an MX record for e-mail to be sent to your domain from the internet.  Again, a peek into the DNS "zone record"

mail.cryblood.com. IN CNAME cryblood.com.
*.cryblood.com IN MX 10 mail.cryblood.com. ;GLOBALOK
cryblood.com. IN MX 10 mail.cryblood.com.

This seemed to work for me, god only knows if it is actually right or if I just got lucky!  The point here is to call whoever is doing you DNS for you and make sure they wrote an MX record into your zone file (and if they didn't, tell them I said to slap themselves 3 times and go back and do so!)  e-mail delivery depends upon the MX record to know where to go!

And if there are any DNS gurus out there.... WRITE A DAMN HOWTO WOULD YA!!!!

(yes, I know there is a DNS howto at linuxdoc, but it seems to be a discussion on how to install BIND.  While that is a very needed and wonderful document itself, what I would like to see is some help on how to setup a domain complete with zone file, MX record and pointers to common problems/mistakes as well as links to other needed DNS information/organizations who host DNS records etc...  and in case youre asking, NO... I am not "just the guy to do it"  it would be like the blonde leading the blind... LITERALLY!!!!)

wow... that was long... sorry...

cryblood

[Mike Stoddart]

>I'm sorry, I don't know anything about register.com. But "a domain" is a whole set of things - including all of the >subdomains of "your domain". So if you have
>   registered mydomain.com, you don't also have to register mail.mydomain.com - it is already registered to you. >But it isn't set up anywhere in DNS.




I'm not sure about this, but register.com might setup mail.yourname.com automatically when you register with them. I'm working from memory from when I registered my domain name with them. So I could be wrong.

[Mike Stoddart]

Actually I'm wondering if the problem is with the MX (mail) records.

If you go into your domain manager, and click on "Change MX".

You'll probably see three records in there that are no longer relevant;


stodge.net     med     mail2.siteamerica.com (probably high?)
stodge.net     med     relay1.exodus.net
stodge.net     med     relay2.exodus.net

The problem might be that the only MX records you have configured are pointing to other mail servers. I.e. when an email server tries to figure out where to send an email to you, it see siteamerica.com and exodus.net, neither of which will accept your email address. You have to have an MX record that points to your server, and it has to be the highest priority.

You have to add an MX record:

yourdomain.com      high priority    mail.yourdomain.com

and then change the existing high priority one (probably siteamerica.com) to be medium priority.

This might fix it, but Im not sure. I think I might have had the same problem, but Im not an expert!!!

cheers

[Charles Emley]

thanks for the clarification, geoff.  since you asked, OK.

my domain is:  F-the-MAN.com

[Charles Emley]

wow, thanks for the pointer to MX, cryblood.  i'm still not up and running with e-mail, but here's where i am left.  i added an MX record with my domain registrar.  it points to mail.f-the-man.com (my domain).

as of today, things were still not working, so, i think i also need to add a new alias for mail.f-the-man.com as well.  apparently an MX record alone does not resolve DNS references to the mail.*** server.  i've made this addition, so i'll see as it replicates over the next couple days whether it is finally running.

thanks again for the info.  and i agree, i'm into the RTFM approach, i just need a FM.

[Charlie Brady]

Charles Emley wrote:

> apparently an MX record alone does not resolve DNS references
> to the mail.*** server.  i've made this addition, so i'll see
> as it replicates over the next couple days whether it is
> finally running.

Looks OK to me now.

Charlie