Setting ISP MX Records

I am trying to find out how to set my MX records for my domain correctly, and
could really use some help.

I have two DSL connections that both route to my Exchange server for SMTP.
Each has it's own IP address.

The MX record I have for my main IP at the ISP says
domainname.com. MX 10 mail.domainname.com.

The corresponding DNS A record says
mail.domainname.com. A 209.xxx.xxx.xxx

First of all, does it matter to exchange server what the name
(mail.domainname.com) is? This isn't the name of the exchange server, but it
is the right domain name and IP address. The guy at the ISP said that if the
name is important to exchange, then I wouldn't be able to add a second MX
record for mail.domainname.com and point it to the other IP address. He says
that would confuse it and it wouldn't work.

I was thinking that if exchange doesn't care what the name says in the
record, then I could just enter an MX saying something like
domainname.com. MX 20 mail2.domainname.com.

And also I could enter the A record to say
mail.domainname.com. A 216.xxx.xxx.xxx

Any ideas on how I can make this work?

Thanks!
~Kyle

Javier
Fri Sep 23 18:04:28 CDT 2005

The A record can be really anything as Exchange doesn't really care.
However, for sending mail its preferable that you have your reverse DNS
records resolve to the same hostname as the MX records.

Basically what you want to do is correct. Let's say you have 2 connections
one with the IP address of x.x.x.x and the other y.y.y.y. If you want to use
the 2nd line as a backup simply make sure your records look something like
this:

domainname.com. MX 10 mail.domainname.com.
domainname.com. MX 20 mail2.domainname.com.
mail.domainname.com A x.x.x.x
mail2.domainname.com. A y.y.y.y

I also suggest you get a 3rd backup mailserver in case your SBS box is down
(ZoneEdit.com is a good/cheap choice).

Cheers,

--
Javier [SBS MVP]
www.msmvps.com/javier
<< SBS ROCKS !!! >>

"Kyle Naeve" <KyleNaeve@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:DB3E3B52-2A40-41FA-9A18-9FD49589318A@microsoft.com...
>I am trying to find out how to set my MX records for my domain correctly,
>and
> could really use some help.
>
> I have two DSL connections that both route to my Exchange server for SMTP.
> Each has it's own IP address.
>
> The MX record I have for my main IP at the ISP says
> domainname.com. MX 10 mail.domainname.com.
>
> The corresponding DNS A record says
> mail.domainname.com. A 209.xxx.xxx.xxx
>
> First of all, does it matter to exchange server what the name
> (mail.domainname.com) is? This isn't the name of the exchange server, but
> it
> is the right domain name and IP address. The guy at the ISP said that if
> the
> name is important to exchange, then I wouldn't be able to add a second MX
> record for mail.domainname.com and point it to the other IP address. He
> says
> that would confuse it and it wouldn't work.
>
> I was thinking that if exchange doesn't care what the name says in the
> record, then I could just enter an MX saying something like
> domainname.com. MX 20 mail2.domainname.com.
>
> And also I could enter the A record to say
> mail.domainname.com. A 216.xxx.xxx.xxx
>
> Any ideas on how I can make this work?
>
> Thanks!
> ~Kyle

Michael
Sat Sep 24 08:43:44 CDT 2005

The reverse DNS lookup is especially important with some anti spam tools
out there now checking email server responces agianst DNS records !

Javier Gomez [SBS MVP] wrote:

> The A record can be really anything as Exchange doesn't really care.
> However, for sending mail its preferable that you have your reverse DNS
> records resolve to the same hostname as the MX records.
>
> Basically what you want to do is correct. Let's say you have 2 connections
> one with the IP address of x.x.x.x and the other y.y.y.y. If you want to use
> the 2nd line as a backup simply make sure your records look something like
> this:
>
> domainname.com. MX 10 mail.domainname.com.
> domainname.com. MX 20 mail2.domainname.com.
> mail.domainname.com A x.x.x.x
> mail2.domainname.com. A y.y.y.y
>
> I also suggest you get a 3rd backup mailserver in case your SBS box is down
> (ZoneEdit.com is a good/cheap choice).
>
> Cheers,
>
>

--
Michael J. Jenkin MVP - SBS, Senior Systems Engineer
Visit http://www.mickyj.com

Microsoft Most Valued Professional, Microsoft's Windows Server Systems -
Small Business Server
MVP's do not work for Microsoft. If this email was generated in a
newsgroup, please reply only to the newsgroup.
Note: The contents of my postings and responses here represent my
personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views, thoughts or
feelings of Microsoft or any of its employees.
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com