Host unknown error...could not send e-mail

[Kevin Darcy]

Connie wrote:

> I am trying to set up a DNS server and am encountering problem when sending
> e-mail from hotmail to user at mydomain.com.  I got a bounced mail saying host
> unknown.  I don't have any problem sending e-mail out from my internal mail
> server to the outside world but just could not send it back.
>
> I have included a MX record in my zone file.
>
>          IN MX   mailsvr
> mailsvr  IN A    ip_addr
>
> It really make me wonder what went wrong.
> Could someone pls help?

You need a "preference" field in that MX record, between "MX" and "mailsvr".
This needs to be a number from 0 to 65535. If you only have one MX record for
the name, then preference value is irrelevant -- put anything there, e.g. "0".
If you have multiple MX'es, then preference is used for fallback and/or
load-balancing.

You should have seen a syntax error in your logs about this.


- Kevin