Configuring DNS for new exchange server.

[James Bailey]

I had some problems in the past so I need to clear something up.

We have a domain of xyz.com pointing to 192.168.1.2 that's hosted on an ISPs
server. Email is also hosted at this same site with domain mail.xyz.com
pointing to the same IP address.

I'm about to install a local Exchange server with an IP of 10.0.0.1. I need
to change mail.xyz.com to point to 10.0.0.1. The root domain xyz.com (which
will also be email address ie (e-mail address removed)) will keep the same IP Address.
What's the exact procedure for updating DNS for mail to flow correctly?

Thanks!

 

[Frankster]

Something wrong here. There is no way your ISPs DNS server has a domain name
pointing to 192.168.1.2 since that is part of the reserved private IP space.
Perhaps a better explanation of your current system setup would help.

Sounds like you will have to ask your ISP to change your mail record to
point to your Router's (modem's) external IP address and then configure your
modem to forward that to your internal mail server. You do have a static IP,
right?

-Frank

 

[James Bailey]

I didn't want to put my IP Address online. That is just an example, as is
the domain name. Sorry for the confusion

 

[Ace Fekay [MVP]]

In

I didn't want to put my IP Address online. That is just an example,
as is the domain name. Sorry for the confusion

It's pretty much what Frankster said. If the internal Exchange server is
10.0.0.1, and let's say your external address is a.b.c.d, then in your NAT
device, you would port remap 25 to 10.0.0.1. For the A record for your mail
server, let's say it's mail.yourdomain.com, change the IP to a.b.c.d. Leave
the MX record alone, because if it was done properly, it's already pointing
to mail.yourdomain.com.

If you have access to DNS, you can change it. If not, you'll need to ask
whomever can change it.

--
Regards,
Ace

Please direct all replies ONLY to the Microsoft public newsgroups
so all can benefit.

This posting is provided "AS-IS" with no warranties or guarantees
and confers no rights.

Ace Fekay, MCSE 2003 & 2000, MCSA 2003 & 2000, MCSE+I, MCT, MVP
Microsoft Windows MVP - Windows Server - Directory Services
Infinite Diversities in Infinite Combinations.
=================================

 

[James Bailey]

Here's an interesting problem I faced one day. It's still pending.

Website and Email Server are hosted at different sites with different IP
Addresses. If you do a lookup on mail.company.com you won't find an MX
record. An A record for mail.company.com points to the exchange server IP
address. An A record for company.c om (root domain without www) points to
the Exchange server also. The company wants their root domain of company.com
to resolve to their website, which is a different IP address. I changed the
root to point to the web server, and created an MX record. After those
changes were made, email stopped flowing. The only way to fix it was to
delete the MX record and point the root domain back to the exchange server.

What happened? I thought I did everything right but obviously missed
something.

Thanks for any input.

 

[Ace Fekay [MVP]]

In

Here's an interesting problem I faced one day. It's still pending.

Website and Email Server are hosted at different sites with different
IP Addresses. If you do a lookup on mail.company.com you won't find
an MX record.

That's correct. I wouldn't imagine finding an MX record for
mail.company.com. You would have to perform an nslookup for domain.com
querying for the MX record for domain.com, not mail.domain.com.

nslookup
set q=mx
domain,com

An A record for mail.company.com points to the exchange
server IP address. An A record for company.c om (root domain without
www) points to the Exchange server also.

The company wants their root
domain of company.com to resolve to their website, which is a
different IP address.

I changed the root to point to the web server,

Good, that's the proper way to do it. The blank domain record should be
pointing to the webserver, not the mail server.

and created an MX record. After those changes were made, email
stopped flowing. The only way to fix it was to delete the MX record
and point the root domain back to the exchange server.

No, no! How exactly did you create the MX record?? To properly create an MX
record:
1. Rt-click the zone, choose to create MX record.
2. Leave the top name box blank.
3. In the bottom "Mailserver" box, type in mail.company.com

This has to be done on the external DNS hosting the public records. Internal
private DNS MX records are not needed and frankly useless.

What happened? I thought I did everything right but obviously missed
something.

Maybe it was the way it was created.

Thanks for any input.

I hope that helped. If you want further *specific* help, please supply your
actual domain name and we'll check it out and point out any problems from
our own tests.

Ace