Do I really need an MX record? (for e-mail to work)

[base60]

Cormack, Ken wrote:
> In article <doc7eg$1jbh$1 at sf1.isc.org>, sm5w2 at hotmail.com wrote:
> 
> 
>>2) The lack of an MX record seems to result in a fall-back to the A
>>record (which explains why we are getting e-mail).
> 
> 
> What would you do when marketing comes to you (as they did to us) and says
> "We don't want to require our users to type "www.ourdomain.foo" in the
> address for our web server.  We feel that's too much work.  We want them to
> only have to type 'ourdomain.foo' into their browser, to hit our web site."
> 
> Trust me, it has happened here, and it has doubtless happened to other
> domains.  (Are users really that lazy that "www." is too much for them to
> type???  Are marketing types really that naïve to think it's a necessary
> change to DNS???)
> 
> Suddenly now, you need you're A record to point to the web host, instead of
> your mail server...

Then your hostmaster should be alert enough to either add the MX or
point out the issue :)