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Newbie Questions - SBS 2011, A/MX records and IP addresses

  • 15-07-2012 10:55am
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29,088 ✭✭✭✭


    Hi there,

    I'm pretty new to the whole hosting/Exchange/MX records side of things - my background has been Deskside Support, Windows Server/AD admin and so on but I've never really had a chance to play with the e-mail/web side as there's always been an existing solution/dedicated support/outsourced wherever I've worked.

    Which is why I'm messing with it now at home :) I have setup a SBS 2011 server on a Hyper-V box that I use to run my Home network and I've configured it to use my newly purchased domain.com address that I bought from yourselves over the weekend.

    After a bit of trial and error and reading forums etc I finally got the in-built Exchange server to accept incoming mail (turned out I hadn't realised I needed an A record for my prefix.domain.com entry as well as an MX)

    Anyway, now the server is working as required and can send/receive mails from the web as well as internally. The problem though is I'm with UPC and don't have a static IP so when/if the modem reboots, Exchange will drop out too until I update the hosting records.

    Normally I've used a dyndns hostname for getting at my machine externally but can something like this be done with your own setup or is there a workaround other than getting a fixed IP address? (as I gather UPC don't provide them for residential customers)

    Any suggestions much appreciated - and remember I'm new to this so go easy :)

    Cheers


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,383 ✭✭✭pizzahead77


    You should be able set up a Dynamaic DNS hostname with whoever and enter it into the first MX record in the Blacknight account. I'd advise you to also purchase a backup mx service (NO-IP do one at a reasonable cost) in case the DDNS service hasn't updated your IP address in time and you'd lose emails.

    Also UPC do not renew their dynanic ip addresses very often - you can have the same IP address for months on end.

    Are you using a router that supports DDNS or planning on a client application on the server?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29,088 ✭✭✭✭_Kaiser_


    You should be able set up a Dynamaic DNS hostname with whoever and enter it into the first MX record in the Blacknight account. I'd advise you to also purchase a backup mx service (NO-IP do one at a reasonable cost) in case the DDNS service hasn't updated your IP address in time and you'd lose emails.

    Also UPC do not renew their dynanic ip addresses very often - you can have the same IP address for months on end.

    Are you using a router that supports DDNS or planning on a client application on the server?

    Cheers for the reply

    Yes I'm using a Buffalo Wireless-N router that natively supports updating a DynDns account so that's what I've used so far.

    I did try to enter that into the "Record Data" field of the MX entry but it runs out of space? Syntax is myhostname.dyndns.org, but it only accepts as far as myhostname.dyndns - if you get what I mean?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,383 ✭✭✭pizzahead77


    Strange - I was able to input a hostname of 25 characters in length into an MX record in my control panel and have it accepted

    How many characters are in your hostname including any periods.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29,088 ✭✭✭✭_Kaiser_


    Strange - I was able to input a hostname of 25 characters in length into an MX record in my control panel and have it accepted

    How many characters are in your hostname including any periods.

    I'm probably doing it wrong, the way I have it entered now is:

    Record host: prefix.mydomain.com
    Record type: MX
    Record data: my external IP

    ... and this works fine.

    So what I presume I need to change is:

    Record host: prefix.mydomain.com
    Record type: MX
    Record data: my dyndns hostname

    ... where the dyndns hostname is 19 characters total


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,740 ✭✭✭mneylon


    An MX record has to be a hostname not an IP

    If you want to create a hostname ie. an A record then you should do that first before using it as an MX record


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29,088 ✭✭✭✭_Kaiser_


    Blacknight wrote: »
    An MX record has to be a hostname not an IP

    If you want to create a hostname ie. an A record then you should do that first before using it as an MX record

    Ah see this is where my inexperience with this side of things is getting me :)

    I currently have it set like this..


    A
    mydomain.com.
    my external IP


    A
    www.mydomain.com.
    my external IP


    A
    prefix.mydomain.com.
    my external IP


    MX
    prefix.mydomain.com.
    10 my external IP


    If I PM'd you my details, is there a way you could have a look at what I have set up now and recommend/make any changes necessary?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,740 ✭✭✭mneylon


    The last part is wrong

    If you use dig on a "normal" domain you'd get back something like this:
    michele$ dig mx michele.me
    
    ; <<>> DiG 9.7.3-P3 <<>> mx michele.me
    ;; global options: +cmd
    ;; Got answer:
    ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 8281
    ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
    
    ;; QUESTION SECTION:
    ;michele.me.			IN	MX
    
    ;; ANSWER SECTION:
    michele.me.		899	IN	MX	30 siracusa.mneylon.com.
    
    ;; Query time: 555 msec
    ;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
    ;; WHEN: Mon Jul 16 18:13:34 2012
    ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 64
    
    

    The MX record has to tell DNS two things:
    1 - the domain name (or hostname) for which it handles mail. In the example above the domain is michele.me
    2 - the hostname of the server that will handle email. In the example above the hostname for the inbound mail server is set to siracusa.mneylon.com

    an MX record CANNOT be an IP address - it has to be a hostname


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29,088 ✭✭✭✭_Kaiser_


    OK "dig" is a new one - remember, newbie at this :)

    If I read your example then, do I change the MX entry on the Control Panel on your site to..

    MX
    mydomain.com.
    10 prefix.mydomain.com

    Is that correct? How do i get around the need for an IP in the other entries - or can I?
    Again, it does seem to work as I currently have it even though it's wrong?

    Again apologies if these are simple/basic questions - do you guys have any step-by-step/setup guide (with examples) I could refer to?

    Cheers


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,740 ✭✭✭mneylon


    You're correct about the MX settings ..

    You need an IP address for every A record


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