DNS and MX records on a Windows 2003 Server
A partner in our firm was having some problems sending e-mail to a client. After serveral troubleshooting steps we found there was no MX record for the client's domain in our cached lookups. I did an nslookup with the command set type=mx and recorded the MX record for the clients domain. E-mail started to flow through again. For some reason though, the record keeps disappearing and then e-mail won't go out again. Looking at the TTL for the record it is set to 1 hour. So my guess is that after one hour it will disappear again. Is there any way to make this record permanent or change the TTL on it? It's grayed out so I don't know if that's an option but it's very frustrating. I'm not a DNS expert by any means and would appreciate any information on how this works and any help.
DNS should be updated automatically. What you do when you try to send a mail is to send a request out to internet regarding a certain domain. The DNS in that domain will answer back with a MX record to tell where to send mail. You said that you could do a nslookup to see the correct mx record, did you do that from the client with a problem since to me it looks like a problem on that workstation with dns queries
what do you use for your email server? exchange or what? Can you explain more about how your email system is set up. POP3, MAPI etc?
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We are currently using Lotus Domino v6.5.1 in a hub and spoke configuration. All inbound and outbound Internet email goes through the hub. This hub requests the MX recoird from our internal DNS server which in turn then deliver the sent mail. 99.9% of the time there is not a problem. It just seems to be one to two MX records that are not correct on an "on-going-basis".
You really shouldn't host your own DNS locally... is your local DNS the Start of Authority for your zone file?? Go to http://dnsreport.com and see what it says about your DNS...
Ideally you want your public DNS zone including your MX record on a level 2 or 3 -- highly available name server so all of your traffic gets routed quickly. If you don't have a remotely hosted service already, you can use a service like zoneedit.com or one of these: http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/Protocols/DNS/DNS_Providers/
Jeff
TechSoEasy
Ideally you want your public DNS zone including your MX record on a level 2 or 3 -- highly available name server so all of your traffic gets routed quickly. If you don't have a remotely hosted service already, you can use a service like zoneedit.com or one of these: http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/Protocols/DNS/DNS_Providers/
Jeff
TechSoEasy