Email setup

[jrcastell]

Hello,

I've set up my MX Record to point to an external mail server from my VDS Control Panel by following the instructions outlined at http://help.hardhathosting.com/question.php/223. (http://help.hardhathosting.com/question.php/223).

I waited 24 hours and used nslookup at http://network-tools.com/nslook/ to verify that new MX record has propigated, but it keeps failing with the following message:

"DNS query for seaerospace.com failed: Connection reset"

On the nslookup form, I used my hardhat ip address in the server field and I used seaerospace.com in the domain field. I haven't switched over the main seaerospace.com domain to point the my hard hat IP address just yet, so I'm wondering if that's why it's failing.

What I'm basically trying to accomplish here is for all emails directed to user@seaerospace.com to be sent to my locally hosted SMTP server. My concern is that when I switch the domain to point to hardhat that our emails will break. Is there some way to test that the emails will be correctly routed prior to moving the domain?

Thanks!

- James -

[David]

#1 Your IP Address at hardhat is NOT the nameservers IP Address as stated in your welcome email.

ns1.hardhathosting.net 65.77.181.2
ns2.hardhathosting.net 65.77.181.3

#2 You have improperly setup the DNS in your account for the MX record
you have the following:

mainmail.seaerospace.com
mail.seaerospace.com

it should have a period at the end like:

mainmail.seaerospace.com.
mail.seaerospace.com.

if not it appends the domain to it like this

mainmail.seaerospace.com.seaerospace.com
mail.seaerospace.com.seaerospace.com

Which does not work

We have fixed it for you.

#3 If you have the VDS as a backup mailserver you need to make sure you have the accounts setup as you do on your external mail server and that you check each mail server for mail. You can check your VDS mail by using the mail.seaerospace.com. Your external with mainmail.seaerospace.com in your email client settings.

#4 It will not work untill you change namservers.

[jrcastell]

Thanks for your awesome support!

[jrcastell]

Excuse my ignorance, but I have one more question regarding the following statement:


If you have the VDS as a backup mailserver you need to make sure you have the accounts setup as you do on your external mail server and that you check each mail server for mail.

Are you saying that my users will have to check their emails on both servers even though the VDS is a backup server? Shouldn't they only have to check mail on the VDS mailserver if the main mailserver goes down?

Thanks!

[David]

How will you know when your mailserver is down? It could go down for a few minutes could be unavailable for certian people because the connection you are on is having routing problems. You will never know it could be 1 minute or 30 or hrs in the middle of night or randomly which the setup you have would try the secondary mailserver.

It is a good practice to check both accounts ALL the time or you will end up with mail in the second account that you never check if you do not.



Excuse my ignorance, but I have one more question regarding the following statement:

Are you saying that my users will have to check their emails on both servers even though the VDS is a backup server? Shouldn't they only have to check mail on the VDS mailserver if the main mailserver goes down?

Thanks!

[jrcastell]

Ah. I understand now. I was mistakenly thinking that all emails would be going to both servers which would result in duplicate emails. I like what you've described and will set up our email clients to check both at the same time. Thanks for your response!