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Invalid Domain Name

A customer would like to use a service called Zywave to send out newsletters to his clients. He is also using MS Office 365. Integratio of the Zywave application with his Outlook 365 email requires that several changes be made to his DNS records. The CNAME that The Zywave folks specify is OK, but the TXT record returns the error shown in the attachment. Apparently, Outlook online believes that the hostname should not have an underscaroe as its first character. The Zywave help desk insists that their specification is correct.

What am I missing here? Is Outlook enforcing something that is not commonly enforced? Or, did Zywave send us an incorrect hostname?

Dave Baldwin

You're missing an attachment at least.

Dave Baldwin

From http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1034 and http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1035 ...

They must start with a letter, end with a letter or digit, and have as interior
characters only letters, digits, and hyphen.

That says that the underscore isn't legal anywhere in the name.

Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System#Domain_name_space

rhavey

ASKER

Thank you. You are telling me what I thought was true.

I thought that I had attached the Word document with my original post.

The Excel document is what we got from Zywave to enter into the DNS record. Am I misinterpreting something?
DNS-Record-Problem.doc

rhavey

ASKER

This is the Excel file with the changes.

I a m stumbling because I usually do not have attachments. I think I am catching on.
First-Choice-Insurance-Agency-Zy.xls

Adam Brown

As was mentioned, underscores are not allowed in TXT records. They are, however, used in SRV records, but _domainkey isn't a typical SRV locator record. Perhaps _domainkey is a placeholder for something else? I would contact Zywave to get some clarification.

Dave Baldwin

I would tell Zywave that nobody else agrees with them.

rhavey

ASKER

We are checking into the placeholder theory. If it is a placeholder, it would have been nice if they had told us what goes in there.

I will let you know when I get an answer from Zywave.

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rhavey

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rhavey

ASKER

The problem was solved by not using Outlook 365.