MX Record Question

[Roy Arends]

On Wed, 21 Feb 2001, Steve [MCP] wrote:

> I have the following info in my zone file.  If you have trouble reading it
> because of formatting I have the ASCII file at
> http://home.earthlink.net/~opposite3/dns.txt
> 
> $ORIGIN com.
> domain 3600 IN SOA domain.com. steve.domain.com. (
>   1 7200 1800 604800 86400 )
>  3600 IN NS ns1.x.x.
>  3600 IN NS nx2.x.x,
>  3600 IN A x.x.x.169
> $ORIGIN domain.com.
> webmail 3600 IN A x.x.x.3
> HERE? 3600 IN MX 10 gateway.domain.com.
> gateway 3600 IN A x.x.x.5
> 
> The info has been sanitized obviously.

Sanitized or Satanised.

A few things.

Why sanatizing if you want this info later to be public available via DNS.
Second, the "," at the end of line 5 in your example probably a dot.

Anyway, here is your zone file:

$ORIGIN domain.com.
@      3600 IN SOA domain.com. steve.domain.com. (
                   1 7200 1800 604800 86400 )
               NS  ns1.x.x.
               NS  nx2.x.x.
               A   x.x.x.169
	       MX  10 gateway
webmail        A   x.x.x.3
gateway        A   x.x.x.5

1. If an entry for a RR starts with a blank, then the RR is assumed to be
   owned by the last stated owner, and will have the last stated owners
   TTL Value.
2. A free-standing @ is used to denote the current origin. 
3. A owner name not ending with a "." will cause a concatonation with the
   $ORIGIN value. ie: "gateway" will be "gateway.domain.com." 

To be short, if you don't put anything at "HERE?", you won't have the
desired behaviour. (Your mx record will have the value of
webmail.domain.com. So, put the MX records higher or use the @ sign.

Regards,

Roy Arends