[lug] Screwed up inbound email

[Peter Hutnick]

Paul Hardiman wrote:

> Hi,
> As the subject implies, I have a slight problem at hardiman.com.
> I have added a dsl router and updated my dns and MTA (exim).
> I am getting a trickle of inbound email into hardiman.com, but not 
> getting mailing list
> traffic such as from this list (hence the alternate email account in the 
> from line).
> I check the router's port log and I see mostly dns (port 53) traffic, 
> but verly little smtp (25).
> 
> I do have an MX record pointing to the MTA host, with port forwarding 
> (smtp, et al) to the same host. However, the MX record is not visible 
> outside my domain. Is this a problem?
> If so, how does one proceed?
> Is the MX record overkill for a small domain (1 zone)?
> 
> Appreciate any assist.

Since no one is replying, I'll bite.

Unless I am totally confused about how internet mail works you MUST have 
an MX record if you want to receive mail.  A secondary (lower priority) 
MX /might/ be overkill, but it isn't IMO since your DSL is more likely 
to go down than telco grade stuff.  IOW, a secondary MX may be /more/ 
important for you than for, say, an ISP.  I may also be confused on 
this, but I think that zone == domain in DNSspeak, so "small domain (1 
zone)" would be nonsensical.  But I may be wrong on that too ;-)

To summarize:  You need an MX, and you need it to be available by DNS to 
  anyone you want to get mail from, which probably means the internet at 
large.

As to how to proceed, you put the MX record in the zone files on the DNS 
servers that your registrar has listed as you "domain servers" or 
whatever (varies by registrar :-(

Good luck!

-Peter