BIND vs. sendmail problem

[B.J. Sanaee]

On Wed, 17 May 2000, Michael Kohne wrote:

> Now, the only odd thing that I can see that is odd about their setup at the
> moment is their MX record. 
> 
> Results of some tests:
> nslookup xxxxx.xxx 	works and gives the correct address
> 
> nslookup -type=mx xxxxx.xxx   fails with '*** localhost can't find
> nanoose.com: Non-existent host/domain'

  Well, despite your best efforts to conceal the domain name in question,
you accidentally left it intact in the error message above. It's actually
pretty fortunate that you did so. I'll never understand folks' obsession
with keeping these things a secret.
 
> The thing I think is odd is that the MX record just points back to the same
> name. Now I know that MX records aren't supposed to point to CNAMES, but
> what about this situation? I'm thinking that it's illegal and screwing
> things up royally. A quick dig of several other domains (including other
> offices of the company, and some popular sites like yahoo) indicates that
> no one else seems to do this. 
> 
> Am I correct? Is this MX record illegal, at least as far as sendmail is
> concerned? 

  No.

> Any help that anyone could give would be greatly appreciated.

mail:~$ host -t ns nanoose.com
nanoose.com name server 209.53.215.2
nanoose.com name server 207.107.182.2
nanoose.com name server 209.53.216.2

  They're using ip addresses on the rhs of their ns records. Only
hostnames should be used on the rhs of ns rr.

  B.J.