Hi,

I've successfully transferred my domains and am currently waiting for
the worlds nameservers to catch up. I've one question about DNS and in
particular how MTAs query a domain name before posting.

My domains all have CNAME aliases for 'www' pointing to my dynamic ip
(dyndns hostname). I have no A records as I have no static IP to point
them to.

Will this cause problems in the long run with MTAs? when I try to send a
n email to one of the domains I get this error:

Host or domain name not found. Name service error for
name=alasdaircampbell.com type=A: Host found but no data record of
requested type

Seems like it's failing because of the missing A record. But I can't see
any other way to have this setup. (Can't get static IP with current ISP).

best,

Alasdair

"Alasdair Campbell" <news@alasdaircampbell.com> wrote in message
news:5qg2auFvqrjsU1@mid.individual.net...

> My domains all have CNAME aliases for 'www' pointing to my dynamic ip
> (dyndns hostname). I have no A records as I have no static IP to point
> them to.
>
> Will this cause problems in the long run with MTAs?

It shouldn't. But the A record is a red herring. An MTA will look for
an MX (mail exchanger) record first. It points to a hostname that will
accept mail to that domain, and while the host should know about mail
to your domain, its name may be in another domain.

A domain may have several MXs, with all the opportunities and problems
that implies.

Groetjes,
Maarten Wiltink

Maarten Wiltink wrote:
> "Alasdair Campbell" <news@alasdaircampbell.com> wrote in message
> news:5qg2auFvqrjsU1@mid.individual.net...
>
>> My domains all have CNAME aliases for 'www' pointing to my dynamic ip
>> (dyndns hostname). I have no A records as I have no static IP to point
>> them to.
>>
>> Will this cause problems in the long run with MTAs?
>
> It shouldn't. But the A record is a red herring. An MTA will look for
> an MX (mail exchanger) record first. It points to a hostname that will
> accept mail to that domain, and while the host should know about mail
> to your domain, its name may be in another domain.
>
> A domain may have several MXs, with all the opportunities and problems
> that implies.
>
> Groetjes,
> Maarten Wiltink
>
>

Hi Maartan,

My situation is I have my MX records pointing to the google apps email
service. Are you saying that because I see mention of an A record, the
MTA is not yet seeing the MX records?

On this domain the TTS is 0, so I presume most NS have had chance to
pick up the changes.

best,
Alasdair

Alasdair Campbell wrote:
> Maarten Wiltink wrote:
>> "Alasdair Campbell" <news@alasdaircampbell.com> wrote in message
>> news:5qg2auFvqrjsU1@mid.individual.net...
>>
>>> My domains all have CNAME aliases for 'www' pointing to my dynamic ip
>>> (dyndns hostname). I have no A records as I have no static IP to point
>>> them to.
>>>
>>> Will this cause problems in the long run with MTAs?
>>
>> It shouldn't. But the A record is a red herring. An MTA will look for
>> an MX (mail exchanger) record first. It points to a hostname that will
>> accept mail to that domain, and while the host should know about mail
>> to your domain, its name may be in another domain.
>>
>> A domain may have several MXs, with all the opportunities and problems
>> that implies.
>>
>> Groetjes,
>> Maarten Wiltink
>>
>>
>
> Hi Maartan,
>
> My situation is I have my MX records pointing to the google apps email
> service. Are you saying that because I see mention of an A record, the
> MTA is not yet seeing the MX records?
>
> On this domain the TTS is 0, so I presume most NS have had chance to
> pick up the changes.

Well maybe not, I just ran this MX record checker
http://www.mob.net/~ted/tools/mx.php3
and none of the NS have any MX records for my domain ginezbukov.com

I know I should just wait, but I'm worried that I need to fix something
before this will work out.

Hello,

Alasdair Campbell a écrit :
>>
>> My situation is I have my MX records pointing to the google apps email
>> service. Are you saying that because I see mention of an A record, the
>> MTA is not yet seeing the MX records?
[...]
> and none of the NS have any MX records for my domain ginezbukov.com

Indeed, neither alasdaircampbell.com nor ginezbukov.com have MX nor A
records. No MX record pointing to Google mail service. All I see is a
SPF record, but this is for validation of outgoing mail, not for
incoming mail.

> I know I should just wait, but I'm worried that I need to fix something
> before this will work out.

Wait for what ? If you don't create MX or A records, they won't just
appear magically.

Pascal Hambourg wrote:
> Wait for what ? If you don't create MX or A records, they won't just
> appear magically.

Hello Pascal, thank you for responding.

I just meant the delay that changes to nameservers take to propagate.
It seems that my own registrar's nameservers are slow to pick up changes.

If I run the following in terminal

$ nslookup ns.heartinternet.co.uk

I get

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: ns.heartinternet.co.uk
Address: 82.110.105.2"

so I run

$ nslookup
> server 82.110.105.2
> set type=mx
> alasdaircampbell.com

I receive

> alasdaircampbell.com
Server: 82.110.105.2
Address: 82.110.105.2#53

*** Can't find alasdaircampbell.com: No answer


This is after changing the MX records to what I believe is correct.
(There are no A records because I have no static IPs)

Alasdair Campbell a écrit :
>
> I just meant the delay that changes to nameservers take to propagate.
> It seems that my own registrar's nameservers are slow to pick up changes.

Ok. I guess that "propagate" (from authoritative NS's to other NS's) is
not the most adequate term, I'd use "take effect" (on the authoritative
NS's) instead. However how come that the CNAME and SPF TXT records are
visible but not the MX records ?

Err, I see now that www.alasdaircampbell.com has now plenty of MX
records pointing to Google mail, but alasdaircampbell.com has none yet.
Didn't you misconfigure something ?

Pascal Hambourg wrote:
> Err, I see now that www.alasdaircampbell.com has now plenty of MX
> records pointing to Google mail, but alasdaircampbell.com has none yet.
> Didn't you misconfigure something ?

My registrar's refresh, minimum and expire values are unusual values
according to a DNS report from Men & Mice.

alasdaircampbell.com
origin = ns.heartinternet.co.uk
mail addr = hostmaster.mainnameserver.com
serial = 2007112060
refresh = 604800
retry = 86400
expire = 1209600
minimum = 3600

Also the backup name server ns2,heartinternet.co.uk is not responding.

I think this means that changes I make to my zone files on these
nameservers are taking too long to take effect.

I *have* mis-configured some settings for CNAMEs and MX records as their
instructions were quite poor. and didn't differentiate when a trailing
(,) would be necessary and when not.