Scalix is assuming it is the only MX for my domain

[cdclark]

I installed Scalix 10 CE on CentOS for evaluation purposes. I'm hoping to replace our plain sendmail/spamassassin mail server with a scalix server. I have an existing RH/sendmail server at mail.mydomain.com. If resolved by an internet or LAN host that machine is the MX for the domain.

I set up a Scalix server at M2.mydomain.com. In order to test it out I set up a .forward on the main production server (mail.mydomain.com) to send my incoming email to my account on the scalix box. That's great and works as expected.

The problem arises when I need to email or reply to people in my company. Their reply-to address is username@mydomain.com. In the past there was no question as to what server handled MX for mydomain.com, because there was only one. However if I create a new message or reply to their messages, the scalix server tries to deliver it locally (to username@m2.mydomain.com) and fails because I've only set up a couple of accounts so far on the scalix server.

What are my options? I want Scalix to accept mail addressed to it (by username@m2.mydomain.com) but I want it to try delivery first to the other server. That is, I want it to send stuff addressed to username@mydomain.com to username@mail.mydomain.com.

[cdclark]

Anyone?

[mephisto]

You need to make sure that your scalix server sees only the old server as MX for the domain. You can test that by running this on your scalix server:

Code: Select all

nslookup
set q=mx
mydomain.com

This should give you a result like:

Code: Select all

mydomain.com    mail exchanger = 10 M1.mydomain.com

Scalix first tests if the email address exists locally and delivers it to the MX if not.

[cdclark]

You need to make sure that your scalix server sees only the old server as MX for the domain. You can test that by running this on your scalix server:

Code: Select all

nslookup
set q=mx
mydomain.com

This should give you a result like:

Code: Select all

mydomain.com    mail exchanger = 10 M1.mydomain.com

Scalix first tests if the email address exists locally and delivers it to the MX if not.

it says it can't find mydomain.com, which is odd, I'm pretty sure I have DNS set up correctly (even with an MX record) on the windows Domain Controller that runs internal DNS services.

In fact if I 'nslookup mydomain.com' without arguements it returns the DNS server (which is also the DC)

Can I hard code this MX record on the scalix box?

[ScalixSupport]

You can't hard code an MX record purely on the server itself.

DNS is very important for something like a mail server and it pays to get the problems with your DNS fixed first.

Check /etc/resolv.conf and make sure you are talking to the right machine. If you are and the incorrect information is being returned by nslookup, your DNS records need to be corrected.

Cheers

Dave

[cdclark]

You can't hard code an MX record purely on the server itself.

DNS is very important for something like a mail server and it pays to get the problems with your DNS fixed first.

Check /etc/resolv.conf and make sure you are talking to the right machine. If you are and the incorrect information is being returned by nslookup, your DNS records need to be corrected.

Cheers

Dave

I understand what you're saying and I agree, but I don't see a problem on the DNS server side, and I don't notice DNS issues with the 12 other servers running around here. If I look at the DNS admin console on the DNS server, there is one MX record for mydomain.com and it is indeed pointing to mail.mydomain.com .

Now that I think about it though, I did have another issue like this with another CentOS box. That one is providing hylafax services and it was having trouble looking up MX for the domain to send status reports. At that point (I think this was October of last year) I did NOT have a MX record on the DNS server for the domain, so I added it and it started behaving as expected.

The windows DNS service manager doesn't really give me a whole lot of options. You navigate to the domain, add a new MX record and that's it... I can only assume its actually working!

I suppose I can find a spare non-windows machine and run DNS on that for testing. I think I have a Qube3 laying around.

[cdclark]

OK I'm retarded. Or maybe its windows server 2000 DNS that's retarded. I had TOO MUCH information in the MX record (I filled in the FQDN in more boxes than necessary) and it caused the record to not function properly.

I'm off to test Scalix again.

EDIT: All is well :)

I figured this problem had a larger underlying problem, otherwise more people would have asked the same question.