MX pointing to an IP address

[Barry Margolin]

In article <93v90q$dj8 at pub3.rc.vix.com>,
Mathias Körber <mathias at koerber.org> wrote:
>
>> Using an IP address instead of a hostname will *not* result in an =
>error
>> from the DNS server at load time.  Syntactically, an MX record =
>pointing to
>> an address is valid (assuming he puts in the preference level that he
>> accidentally left out above), so named won't complain.  But most =
>mailers
>> will.
>
>Syntactically, yes. But it does not mean that IP address, but would be
>translated into a name under is $ORIGIN (missing '.' at the end !):
>
>	$ORIGIN mydomain.com.
>	hostb IN MX 10 204.5.6.7
>                  ^^priority!
>
>will result in:
>
>	hostb.mydomain.com. IN MX 10 204.5.6.7.mydomain.com

Most of the times when I've seen people do this, they put a "." at the end
of the address:

hostb IN MX 10 204.5.6.7.

>which most likely does not exist, and definitely is not what
>he wants..

I know.  But since named doesn't check whether the hostname in an MX record
exists, it will not result in an error.  I was not saying that it's OK to
do it, I was just responding to your claim that it will result in an error
being logged when you load the zone into named.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at genuity.net
Genuity, Burlington, MA
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