DNS MX records

[branden_burger]

Hey there - I'm quite new to setting up a mail server, but not linux. I'll be able to get along fine once a few basic questions of mine have been answered -

I have a dedicated server on the internet which is set up to be its own primary and secondary nameserver - the IP addresses of which are given.

I have a domain already registered which points to a location not used now. This omain is where I would like to have my email addresses set up.

So where does this DNS MX record come in and where do I add/edit them - on the server, and in which file? And what is the DNS MX record going to be - I can't seem to figure.

thanks

[Marnitz]

You should probably read up a bit on DNS before messing around with the settings. Though you say your domain isn't pointing anywhere useful at the moment, it can still be very frustrating if you have configured something just slightly wrong.

Anyway, your MX record for your domain is very similar to adding an A record. I only have knowledge of BIND (named) so I'll give you an example from that. In BIND, you add your MX record underneath your NS records. So, for instance if you should have something like

NS ns1.somewhere.com.
NS ns2.somewhere.com.
MX 10 mail.somewhere.com.

The 10 is the cost of contacting the mail server. You need different costs for each of your MX servers, depending on which will be used as backups. You also need to create A records for each. Keep in mind that you CANNOT use CNAME records for mail servers. To test your dns settings, http://www.dnsstuff.com and http://www.dnsreport.com are free services that will tell you whats wrong.

If you understood 0 of this, then its definately time to do some research on DNS first. In any case, the BIND how-to on the linux documentation project (http://www.tldp.org/) is very good http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/DNS-HOWTO.html

Hope that helps
Marnitz