Slightly OT - MX RR Santity Check requested...

[Mark Andrews]

> I've encountered a specific problem FOUR times in the past six months now and
>  
> am kindly asking Bind-Users for some insight.
> 
> The problem is sending SMTP servers that don't ever query past the first (hi 
> pref) MX RRs.  The first time we encountered this problem, it was with an 
> e-mail list server appliance (don't know the exact type/make/model) at a 
> local university in our area.  
> 
> The second and third times were with new MS Exchange servers.
> 
> Now today, I'm working on the same problem with a domain who's SMTP services 
> are hosted by Network Solutions Inc. (NSI).  
> 
> We use a strategy whereby our lowest numbered (high pref) MX RR is a 
> firewalled host.  The higher numbered (lower pref) MX RR designates our DMZ 
> SMTP server, which handles e-mail on behalf of the server in the other MX RR.
>   
> The DMZ SMTP server is world reachable on TCP/25.  It's straight out of the 
> ORA Nutshell book, "Building Internet Firewalls".  We process 4 million 
> messages per month, so I'm pretty sure that other organizations are still 
> using MX and firewalls to force mail through the DMZ SMTP server, and then 
> deliver back to a better protected mail server.
> 
> I've verified that the sending SMTP server only ever queries the first (low 
> numbered - high pref) MX RR.  After that...NOTHING.  It never tries the 
> second.  
> 
> The net result is that the sender (in this case) will queue SMTP traffic for 
> our domain indefinitely....because they never look up MX RRs any lower than 
> the highest pref MX RR.
> 
> Has anybody else run into this lately?  
> 
> For the curious....   YES!  We plan on configuring transports in place of the
>  
> old Firewall/MX strategy on our Postfix servers ASAP.  
> 
> Thanks in advance. :-)
> 
> ... Kev
> 

	Your configuration is broken.

RFC 974

   If the list of MX RRs is not empty, the mailer should try to deliver
   the message to the MXs in order (lowest preference value tried
   first).  The mailer is required to attempt delivery to the lowest
   valued MX.  Implementors are encouraged to write mailers so that they
   try the MXs in order until one of the MXs accepts the message, or all
   the MXs have been tried.  A somewhat less demanding system, in which
   a fixed number of MXs is tried, is also reasonable.  Note that
   multiple MXs may have the same preference value.  In this case, all
   MXs at with a given value must be tried before any of a higher value
   are tried.  In addition, in the special case in which there are
   several MXs with the lowest preference value,  all of them should be
   tried before a message is deemed undeliverable.

-- 
Mark Andrews, ISC
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: Mark_Andrews at isc.org