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Accepted
John R.
Asked: 2010-12-09 21:06:23 +0800 CST

Should my MX record point to my FQDN?

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I finally got postfix up and running for the first time, and want to make sure all things are correct before I 'test' it out, so I can assume unworldly powers stopped it from working and not me.

Assume my FQDN is me.mysite.com, should my MX record point there or to mysite.com?

domain-name-system email fqdn

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Firstly - your MX record MUST point to hostname that itself points to an A and/or AAAA record. An MX record cannot directly contain an IP address nor can it point to a CNAME record.

    Secondly, ideally it should point to whatever your HELO name of the server is, but if they're not going to match nomatter what, then it doesn't matter where it points to, just as long as the A record resolves to the correct IP address.

    You can verify your MX is set up correctly by using nslookup (windows) or dig (linux). On nslookup you would do this:

    C:\Users\mark.henderson>nslookup
Default Server:  dns.domain.local
Address:  192.168.161.2

> set q=mx
> example.com
Server:  dns.domain.local
Address:  192.168.161.2

Non-authoritative answer:
example.com     MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = mail.example.com

mail.example.com       internet address = aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd

    If you see your correct IP address on that last line, then your MX is working correctly.

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