MX Records

[Barry Margolin]

In article <Twdy3.3114$iy.54777 at newsr1.san.rr.com>,
Barry Trottier <btrotti1 at san.rr.com> wrote:
>Why are MX Records needed?
>
>Can your site not receive mail without them?

You should be able to receive mail without them.  They're only really
needed if the mail server has a different address from the domain name
itself.

However, there are efficiency reasons, having to do with the way caching
DNS servers work, why it's a good idea to have an MX record even if it just
points to itself.

>Also, how can they be set up if you only have 1 IP address for your computer
>+ site (ie the IP of the computer is the IP of the site).  It seemed by
>reading info on MX Records that they sent mail to a machine and it seemed
>that the machine needed to be an 'A' record and therefore have a different
>IP from the actual mysite.com IP.

As someone else pointed out, there's nothing wrong with having the MX
record point back to the same name.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at bbnplanet.com
GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
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