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

[John Coutts]

In article <doetj5$1v2b$1 at sf1.isc.org>, sm5w2 at hotmail.com says...
>
>Daniel Ström wrote:
>
>> All i ever hear is excuses (we have to run this ourself) but in 99%
>> that is absolutely not defendable from a  economical or practical
>> standpoint.
>
>You make absolutely no sense, especially since I have described our
>situation.
>
>We have been operating our own mail server since 1998.  It is an
>NT4-server running post.office (made by defunct software.com).  It is
>the single most reliable, most trouble-free, least resource-intensive
>piece of business infrastructure we have.  Only our 12 year old HP
>laser Jet printer comes close.  If I want to add, delete, modifiy user
>accounts, I can do it in seconds.  If I want to add/remove any domains,
>user-names, IP addresses from it's blocking list, I can do it in
>seconds.  If I want to give users the ability to send/receive from
>outside the local network, I can do it in seconds.  If I want to set up
>100 separate e-mail addresses, I can do it in seconds (well, ok, maybe
>minutes).  If I want to add 100 aliases to a single address, I can do
>it.
>
>If I want to go 1, 2, 3, 6 months without even turning on the screen of
>the server, I can (and have) do that too.
>
>After all that, why would I want to throw this away and have someone
>else host our e-mail?  Why would I want to pay for that, when what I
>have is already paid for?
>
>(and PS:  We have a copy of NAV corporate edition running on the
>server, and it intercept's 99% of viral attachments sitting in the
>spool folders so end-users never get them)
>
>> If you dont have the resources let someone else do it that has them
>> and focus on your core buisness.
>
>How did my questions about MX records turn into me not having enough
>resources to run our own mail server?  Please explain.
>
>> In this case judging by the setup (cable modem on a single IP) i
>> would seriously doubt that running it in-house is  a wise decision.
>
>Read what I said above.  Maybe some of you (or just Daniel Ström)
>wrestle with difficult SMTP software that breaks on you on a daily
>basis, or have an organization with more than 25 employees.  Maybe
>that's what colors your impression of the difficulty in running your
>own SMTP server.   That's not my experience.  I can't believe how easy
>it was to pull our server out of our old location (ISDN, 64 dedicated
>IP net-block) and get it back on-line through a single-IP ADSL
>connection.
>
*************** REPLY SEPARATER *****************
The proper way is to use an "MX" record. Not all MTA's check for an "A" record. 
As a matter of fact, spam engines are more likely to use cache or "A" records 
than legitimate MTA's. Also be warned than many MTA's block DSL originated 
email.

Your experience seems to be quite contrary to my own. I have operated a mail 
server for over 15 years, and the amount of work to maintain it has multiplied 
exponentially over the years. For such a small number of accounts, I have found 
that it is just not worth the effort required, and recently shut down our 
server and moved the accounts elsewhere.

J.A. Coutts