How to setup your own Email Server

So in order to get the mail sent to my machine i use my domain name in mx records like this..

mx0.www.Domainname.co.uk <---is this correct ? this will then look at my ip address?

(I dont have A name set up mx0.MailServer.DomainName.co.uk, the A record is  set up to point to my Ip address)

Thankyou for your help so far

not quite,you need not have to put mx0 at the startif you do, then you will have to define an A record for mx0.www..... basically just want to set the mx record to: www.domainname.co.uk 10

Ziwez0 hello how are you?  I am sorry I cannot help you with your email configuration.  But I need some tips from you.  As you have configured a web server and it is running fine.  I need to do the same thing.  Configure a web serve so people can visit my site from outside.  If you don't mind I will need all the technical and physical hardware it encopases.


Thank
GFlexz

hopefully the following clears up some things for you -

MX, Mail Exchange Records

MX records are far more important than they sound. They allow all mail for a domain to be routed to one host. This is exceedingly useful -- it abates the load on your internal hosts since they do not have to route incoming mail, and it allows your mail to be sent to any address in your domain even if that particular address does not have a computer associated with it. For example, we have a mail server running on the fictitious machine eric.foobarbaz.com. For convenience sake, however, we want our email address to be user@foobarbaz.com rather than user@eric.foobarbaz.com. This is accomplished by the record shown below:

   foobarbaz.com. IN MX 10 eric.foobarbaz.com.

The column on the far left signifies the address that you want to use as an Internet email address. The next two entries have been explained thoroughly in previous records. The next column, the number 10, is different from the normal DNS record format. It is a signifier of priority. Often larger systems will have backup mail servers, perhaps more than one. Obviously, you will only want the backups receiving mail if something goes wrong with the primary mail server. You can indicate this with your MX records. A lower number in an MX record means a higher priority, and mail will be sent to the server with the lowest number. If something happens so that this server becomes unreachable, the computer delivering the mail will attempt every other server listed in the DNS tables, in order of priority. Obviously, you can have as many MX records as you would like. It is also a good idea to include an MX record even if you are having mail sent directly to a machine with an A record. Some sendmail programs only look for MX records. It is also possible to include wildcards in MX records. If you have a domain where your users each have their own machine running mail clients on them, mail could be sent directly to each machine. Rather than clutter your DNS entry, you can add an MX record like this one:

   *.foobarbaz.com. IN MX 10 eric.foobarbaz.com.

This would make any mail set to any individual workstation in the foobarbaz.com domain go through the server eric.foobarbaz.com. One should use caution with wildcards; specific records will be given precedence over ones containing wildcards.

hey thanx for that info, i still cant recieve email although im not reciving any error messages, ive taken a screen shot of my settings for domain name,  (the ip address has been editited for sec  reasons) www.whathappenedwhen.co.uk/mxrecords.htm
this screen shot shows what ive set up in A Records, DNS and MX records if you could take a look and tell me where i have gone wrong that would be brilliant.
Thanx

David

first off let me say there's no such things as DNS record.   second, editing the ip address in the screen shot does not provide any security.  

doing some dig(ging) on creativehosts.co.uk

www.creativehosts.co.uk. 86400   IN      A            81.96.10.178

ftp.creativehosts.co.uk.     86400   IN      CNAME   creativehosts.co.uk.
creativehosts.co.uk.          86400   IN      A            81.96.10.178

creativehosts.co.uk.          86400   IN      MX      10 www.creativehosts.co.uk.

according to this i looks as you have the host on 81.96.10.178 set to receive mail for the creativehosts.co.uk domain.  when making changes to DNS setting is does take a few hours for stuff to propagate through the internet.  it does appear that the host on 81.96.10.178 is down as i can't ping it.

are you trying to tell me that all those settings from that screen shot are correct? or do i need to change anything (ive disable the website for now but the computer is set up for smtp and pop)

they look right but trying to connect to port 25 (smtp) on 81.96.10.178 i get nothing.  are you sure these services are running?  you can test them by:

telnet localhost 25 <- smtp
telnet localhost 110 <- pop3

is there any firewalls in front of this server?

I only have a personal firewall (zonealarm) installed