mail server differing from main

[Ed Schmollinger]

On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 08:32:03AM -0700, David wrote:
> I currently have my mail server and domain on different machines, which
> is working just find, my question is, can I have them pointing to
> different machines with the same name.
> 
> The relevant part goes something like this:
> ---------------------------------------
> @       IN  A   1.2.3.4 ; Host IP
> @       IN  NS  ns1.nsserver.com.
> @       IN  NS  ns2.nsserver.com.
> @       IN  MX  10  mail.mydomain.com. ; Mail server
> 
> ; Domain
> www             IN  A   1.2.3.4
> mail            IN  A   4.3.2.1
> ---------------------------------------
> 
> So currently mail sent to soandso at mydomain.com works, but in order to
> check it, I have to use the mail server mail.mydomain.com.  Is there a
> way to set it up so that using the mail server mydomain.com will access
> the mail server not the web server?
> 
> If I changed this:
> @       IN  MX  10  mail.mydomain.com. ; Mail server
> 
> To this:
> @       IN  MX  10  mydomain.com. ; Mail server
> 
> Then the mail server thinks its supposed to be the same machine as the
> web server.

If you're just asking about mail delivery (via SMTP,) then what you have
now is probably what you want.

If you're talking about checking mail (via POP, IMAP, etc,) then no, you
can't do that without also having to do port redirection or somesuch.

If you want to seperate the name you advertise for mail delivery from
the name you advertise for mail checking, then you probably want to add
a couple records:

pop.mydomain.com.    IN	CNAME	mail.mydomain.com.
imap.mydomain.com.   IN	CNAME	mail.mydomain.com.

And then tell your users that the imap server is called
"imap.mydomain.com", the pop server is called "pop.mydomain.com", etc.

-- 
Ed Schmollinger - schmolli at frozencrow.org