Do I really need an MX record? (for e-mail to work)

[Kurt Boyack]

[snip]
> own SMTP server.   That's not my experience.  I can't believe how easy
> it was to pull our server out of our old location (ISDN, 64 dedicated
> IP net-block) and get it back on-line through a single-IP ADSL
> connection.

I've put up many mail servers, and the spammers usually find them long
before they have MX records (it actually helps in testing the spam
filters). They scan IP addresses and look for hosts listening on port
25, then they start sending spam and trying to relay. It sounds like
the reason you are getting less spam is not due to your MX going away,
but due to your IP address changing. It is only a matter of time
before your mail server is found by spammers. I think having an MX
record is a good idea. It could help spammers find your mail server,
but there are probably people out there that cannot send email to you.
The latter is an excellent reason to have MX records.

I also think that yourdomain.foo should point to your web server. Why
should people have to type www? A company's web server should be as
easy to find as possible. I never type www when going to websites.