Adjusting MX records

[Haze]

HI All,

I have been talking to the providers of a citrix service for a friend and they wanted the emails MX record SMTP to be changed to another IP. I presume I do this in my 123-reg account then?
Any advice?

Andy

[Jeewhizz]

You can't* point an MX to an IP

Do it like this:

Create an A record for mail2.domain.com pointing to the new IP
set the MX record to the new A record

Jee
* read: shouldn't

[Haze]

Asked IT Co. to confirm that they wanted the MX changed, and they said they just call the hosting company and give the details and it's usually sorted; but they weren't too sure what gets done.

I asked about the "A" record and they said it wasn't anything to do with the email addresses, just the domain; but isn't it mapping to the SMTP server and thus the specific item I have to "edit"?

Was asked to "hold fire" until tomorrow as they were going to do a few checks and get back to me in the morning. Sounded as though they knew not much more than I do to be honest, and I've just been reading about it online.... Guess that is going to be their checks too then....

Using DNSStuff.com, reverse lookup option, the server details given to me relate to demon, just thought I'd mention it although not relevant.

If you're adding "mail2" what about "mail" itself?

Andy

[Haze]

I found this informative
http://www.reachcustomersonline.com/content/2003/11/03/15.22.55/index.php

[Haze]

Contacted by client, their IT consultants said 123Reg do not have the facility to redirect mails to the email server/firewall, and so have asked me ("asked", that's right!) me to transfer back to the original registrars.

Is it possible to transfer the email sitting on "my" server to the new registrars? Client doesn't want to log on to the webmail account and look at the emails sitting there. No idea why though. Have given them printed instruction on how to do it, but they just refuse.
 

[Whatever]

Andy,

If this was an SBS 2003 server what we would do is get an SMTP feed and the server would go off and collect any mail for the domain. Then Exchange would sort the mail and put it in the right account ready forf the user to log in and collect off the local server.

Dunno if that helps?

[Haze]

Hi there,
Thanks for the info, but I've had to transfer back to the original registrar they were using. I think all I had to do was...

yourdomain.com        IN  MX  mail.yourdomain.com.
mail.yourdomain.com   IN  A   IP Address of the firewall/emailserver

which I could have done through the DNS editor at SiteHQ.
But spoke to support at 123Reg, (twice, as I wanted to double check the info/advice, as I always do), got 2 conflicting answers, one said to add "mail" to the MX window with priority of 10 then set A to the IP Number, second said "oh no, don't touch the 'A record'" so worse off than when I started.
I was given an IP number which was demon in reversedns, so suppose that's who their ISP is. And external emails were to be sent to their LAN Firewall which is managed by an IT company, who were less than helpful when trying to set this all up, despite it being for one of their customers.

In the "reachcustomersonline.com" link above I couldn't understand the second set of name servers at the bottom. What are they for?
The top ones in this example don't have an ISP but on my SiteHQ sites it's ns1, and on my SiteHQ there are none at the bottom - which have to be added -  but where should they point?
But I'm sure I've lost the client now anyway....

[Jeewhizz]

The first guy was right. 123-reg can handle it all, or SiteHQ's DNS servers would do it for you .

Live and learn!

[Haze]

Hi Jee,

The IT company that looks after the IT for my client did say that 123-Reg couldn't point the emails to the firewall/email server/IP number but I find that very hard to believe. Guess who has a meeting with them next week... that'll be a laugh.... NOT

When you said

Create an A record for mail2.domain.com pointing to the new IP
set the MX record to the new A record

what I could have done was set "yourdomain.com IN  MX  mail.yourdomain.com." with a "dot" after the first "com" too though. Well as you said, Live and Learn.... Could have been the potential for much for business from this source... darn it....

[Haze]

In the worked example a few posts up I wondered whether anyone could explain where the new "anotherdns.com" would come from?

What would you advise to do with the emails sitting on my server? My client refuses bluntly to access them via webmail. Surely they'll not be accessible via webmail when the registrar is transferred, although the name servers for the domain will remain unchanged, does this mean the webmail would remain unchanged too?

[Haze]

Doing a lot of learning, but not much living.....

[sarahA]

You should have done what Jee said to do in the first place as that's all that was needed. We have clients with exchange servers and so their sites are hosted on sitehq and their email goes to their exchange server direct from 123-reg.

As for the remaining mail sitting in the hosting account, the customer can still download this via outlook by setting up the standard pop account or by going in via webmail. Just because future email goes direct to their exchange server doesn't mean the existing email cannot be accessed in the same way as you always would. If your customer isn't prepared to use webmail or download it then just leave it there. You've already been messed around by their new IT company, told the wrong information ie. you can't use 123-reg for Mail MX when you can (of which I'd inform the client so that they're aware that their IT company is crap).

[Haze]

HI Sarah,
Thanks for those words of encouragement, I definitely will do so as I have a meeting with them the end of next week. The lady I am dealing with doesn't want to access webmail as she says in her own words, she is a technophobe. I even offered to do it for her but she wasn't having it, saying it might interfere with the IT companies management of their system, but again I tried to tell her it wouldn't.

I should have done as Jee said but got in touch with 123reg, got the conflicting advice, sent off a request to SiteHQ for advice/assistance but was told they couldn't help and I'd have to manage the DNS myself; after finding the link in an earlier post I thought it pertinent to get in touch with my hosts and ask their advice.They did say

manage their DNS directly at the domain registrar end and point the mail server to their IP/host and the A records to the SiteHQ server IP. This is not something we can assist you with.

which was received this morning.
But it's turning out to be a disastrous few days.

[Haze]

I guess my only other option for the emails is to forward them to their respective recipients when the domain has transferred? Or is it possible to edit the MX while the domain is in transit, ie adjust the settings in CPanel on SiteHQ to send any additional emails to the IP address I was given?

[Haze]

Just been on the phone to 123 reg again and now they say it isn't possible to redirect emails as the site nameservers are elsewhere....

[Haze]

Should the IP address have a period after it? I read somewhere that it does, but it doesn't have it onj the worked example in the earlier post, way up there....

[Mr Anderson]

Should the IP address have a period after it?

No. The address used in the MX record has to have a full stop: mail.domain.com. instead of mail.domain.com

[Haze]

Many thanks Hurri... guess it's worth a few applauds....

[sarahA]

If you have email sitting on a server then if you try to forward it to the same email address it won't leave the server regardless of where the domain is pointing to. As far as the server is concerned xyz.com is pointing at your server so when you tell the server to forward info@xyz.com back to info@xyz.com the server will just put it back in the pop box and not look elsewhere, why should it, it thinks xyz.com is on the server.

What you need is a second domain pointing to the new email set up and unknown to the current server, then you can forward or bounce (possible in Horde) the emails on to the new domain.

Alternatively if you have a bounce option on your email client then download the emails yourself and bounce each one on via you ISP's smtp this way it won't go back to the old server. A bit tedious if there are a few but it's possible.

Personally however I'd just inform the client that they need to download their email by the old method, get all the email off the server and then you can delete their accounts. If they say no then why go out of your way. As I said last night, they've just wasted your time as it is. You're offering them a viable solution, to simply set up outlook express to download pop email.

[Haze]

If you have email sitting on a server then if you try to forward it to the same email address it won't leave the server regardless of where the domain is pointing to. As far as the server is concerned xyz.com is pointing at your server so when you tell the server to forward info@xyz.com back to info@xyz.com the server will just put it back in the pop box and not look elsewhere, why should it, it thinks xyz.com is on the server.

Yup that I understood, but I had wondered whether the emails on the present server would be there as I am sure they will set up the registrar to redirect emails direct to their in-house email server and not coming to where they are at SiteHQ.

What you need is a second domain pointing to the new email set up and unknown to the current server, then you can forward or bounce (possible in Horde) the emails on to the new domain.

Sounds complicated, I could use my own domain, although I have a few sitting empty too.

Alternatively if you have a bounce option on your email client then download the emails yourself and bounce each one on via you ISP's smtp this way it won't go back to the old server. A bit tedious if there are a few but it's possible.

Suppose this would be the easiest...

Personally however I'd just inform the client that they need to download their email by the old method, get all the email off the server and then you can delete their accounts. If they say no then why go out of your way. As I said last night, they've just wasted your time as it is. You're offering them a viable solution, to simply set up outlook express to download pop email.

Well that is the easiest, and I've said to them until I am blue in the face that there are emails on the server which MAY be very important to them.... but they're just not listening.....

[Haze]

Calling Jee...

or anyone else who knows....
I made changes to MX (mail.domain.com.), A (IP of firewall/email server) but also checked the tick box which says

Always accept mail locally even if the primary mx does not point to this server.

and wondered whether this should have been done or not? Before altering the MX/A no emails were going to the client as they didn't want to set up POP3 (because of their Citrix network I think), but does adding the "tick" mean that no emails will be sent to the email server or does it mean that the present email server will act as a cache-type of thingy?

Cheers
Andy

[Haze]

HI there,
Managed to get hold of Jee, he recommended to UNtick the "wee box" which thankfully I had done anyway.
What I wondered was how do you bounce email in Outlook 6, if it's possible. Outlook6 is what I have here, had considered downloading MailWasher as I think I read somewhere that it could bounce emails, so wondered if forwarding the emails to my own account and bouncing with MW would work...?

 

[Mr Anderson]

HI there,
Managed to get hold of Jee, he recommended to UNtick the "wee box" which thankfully I had done anyway.
What I wondered was how do you bounce email in Outlook 6, if it's possible. Outlook6 is what I have here, had considered downloading MailWasher as I think I read somewhere that it could bounce emails, so wondered if forwarding the emails to my own account and bouncing with MW would work...?

Can't help you with Outlook, but if there's still a copy of the mail on the server and you have Horde then you can easily forward them all in one go, or several at a time, by ticking the checkbox to the left of the message in the Inbox view and clicking the forward link.

[Haze]

Hi Mr Anderson,

At the mo I'm forwarding them individually as some seem to be cc'd or bcc'd to others. But thanks for the info.

Cheers
Andy

[Mr Anderson]

some seem to be cc'd or bcc'd to others.

:/

They'll have received their own copies, right?

[Haze]

Some of the emails from externals sources were sent to multiple addresses on the client's domain via cc and bcc, and so they wouldn't have been received I would have thought, thus having to check each individually. The bouncing idea would have solved perhaps, but then again wouldn't the message just have gone to the sender and not the cc'd and bcc'd addresses. Clear as mud, eh.... 

[Mr Anderson]

Some of the emails from externals sources were sent to multiple addresses on the client's domain via cc and bcc, and so they wouldn't have been received I would have thought, thus having to check each individually. The bouncing idea would have solved perhaps, but then again wouldn't the message just have gone to the sender and not the cc'd and bcc'd addresses. Clear as mud, eh.... 

You're "forwarding on" the emails received by your client in the account you set up for him, right?

So what if some of them were CCd elsewhere - you don't have to resend them to them, they will have their own copy at their own account. Regardless of whether or not your client has the good sense to download his mail, or needs to be babied and have you forward it to him.

If you're having to do this for multiple mail accounts on the same domain then just do each account individually, sending all their own messages en masse rather than (possibly illegally) reading all one person's mail on the off-chance someone else may have needed a copy.

[Haze]

multiple accounts on the same domain is the problem.... sending en masse... not many to be honest.

Cheers

[Mr Anderson]

multiple accounts on the same domain is the problem....

Why is it a problem?

Send all the mail for each account separate to other accounts. It may seem like a good idea to you to read someone's mail to see if anyone else needed a copy and to send it to them too, but what about the other mail that other person should be getting and is left sitting in their own account? Are you going to then sift through each individual mail of theirs to work out if you've sent them a copy already or not?

You are making a lot more work for yourself and dragging the problem on for an unnecessary amount of time as a result.

[Haze]

Point taken, and understood. It could be a mammoth task, potentially.
Going to look more into bouncing and how to do it with MW or SMTP, whatever.

Many thanks for your valuable advise.
Ta mate

Andy