Setting up mail

[terryoleary1981]

Hi i've had ISPconfig working for my website since January but i still cannot figure out the mail side of things.

I've followed the tutorial to the letter on here, and have tried various DNS entries with my registrars but i can still not receive any email.

I've changed a few things and now i get this error 5.1.2 Bad destination host 'DNS Hard Error'. I've looked this up and it is supposed to be an A-record problem but my domain has an a-record and i can see the sites perfectly well.

I'm now stumped.

[till]

1) Make sure that there is a DNS MX Record for the domain, pointing to the hostname of your server.
2) If your server is not in a datacenter, ask your provider if they block smtp traffic on port 25
3) If you send a email to your server, does any additional lines appear in the mail.log file.

[terryoleary1981]

Hi still no joy with this, I've checked with my ISP and as i'm a static ip my port 25 is open. I've put some DIG outputs below as i'm probably setting the wrong DNS settings /

[root@wallace ~]# dig ns spongecat.com

; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> ns spongecat.com
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 55963
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;spongecat.com. IN NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
spongecat.com. 70086 IN NS ns2.hosteurope.com.
spongecat.com. 70086 IN NS ns.hosteurope.com.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns.hosteurope.com. 3497 IN A 212.67.202.2

;; Query time: 3 msec
;; SERVER: 135.196.0.6#53(135.196.0.6)
;; WHEN: Fri Jun 13 12:57:33 2008
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 93

[root@wallace ~]# dig mx spongecat.com

; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> mx spongecat.com
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 53505
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 17

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;spongecat.com. IN MX

;; ANSWER SECTION:
spongecat.com. 69888 IN MX 10 spongecat.com.
spongecat.com. 69888 IN MX 20 mx1.123-reg.co.uk.

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
spongecat.com. 69888 IN NS ns.hosteurope.com.
spongecat.com. 69888 IN NS ns2.hosteurope.com.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
spongecat.com. 69888 IN A 87.194.223.165
mx1.123-reg.co.uk. 2237 IN A 195.224.48.117
mx1.123-reg.co.uk. 2237 IN A 195.224.48.118
mx1.123-reg.co.uk. 2237 IN A 195.224.48.119
mx1.123-reg.co.uk. 2237 IN A 195.224.48.120
mx1.123-reg.co.uk. 2237 IN A 195.224.48.121
mx1.123-reg.co.uk. 2237 IN A 195.224.48.123
mx1.123-reg.co.uk. 2237 IN A 195.224.48.124
mx1.123-reg.co.uk. 2237 IN A 195.224.48.125
mx1.123-reg.co.uk. 2237 IN A 195.224.48.126
mx1.123-reg.co.uk. 2237 IN A 195.224.48.109
mx1.123-reg.co.uk. 2237 IN A 195.224.48.110
mx1.123-reg.co.uk. 2237 IN A 195.224.48.111
mx1.123-reg.co.uk. 2237 IN A 195.224.48.114
mx1.123-reg.co.uk. 2237 IN A 195.224.48.115
mx1.123-reg.co.uk. 2237 IN A 195.224.48.116
ns.hosteurope.com. 3509 IN A 212.67.202.2

;; Query time: 7 msec
;; SERVER: 135.196.0.6#53(135.196.0.6)
;; WHEN: Fri Jun 13 13:00:51 2008
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 398


are the above entries right?

[falko]

That looks ok. What happens in the mail log when you send an email to your server?

[terryoleary1981]

Hi I followed the tutorial about DNS setup at http://www.howtoforge.org/ispconfig_dns_godaddy and realised i may have set my DNS records up incorrectly, and also didnt have port 53 open on my router to allow dns access. I've changed all these and re run my dig and got the following outputs:

[root@wallace ~]# dig ns spongecat.com

; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> ns spongecat.com
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 8329
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;spongecat.com. IN NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
spongecat.com. 79253 IN NS 192.168.1.108.

;; Query time: 3 msec
;; SERVER: 135.196.0.6#53(135.196.0.6)
;; WHEN: Mon Jun 16 21:00:18 2008
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 58

-----------
[root@wallace ~]# dig mx spongecat.com

; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> mx spongecat.com
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 25748
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;spongecat.com. IN MX

;; ANSWER SECTION:
spongecat.com. 78904 IN MX 10 www.192.168.1.108.

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
spongecat.com. 78904 IN NS 192.168.1.108.

;; Query time: 4 msec
;; SERVER: 135.196.0.6#53(135.196.0.6)
;; WHEN: Mon Jun 16 21:06:07 2008
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 78

Firstly does this output still look ok? The website seems to have stopped working now / (192.168.1.108 is actually the internal IP of my web server, but i used my external IP in all the dns settings).

[terryoleary1981]

I've just checked my ISPConfig management settings and the ISPConfig IP address was set to the internal IP of the server, am i right in thinking this should be set to the external IP?

[falko]

In the management settings you must use the internal IP address, but for the DNS records you must use your public IP address.

[terryoleary1981]

thanks for highlighting that!

I'm confused as to why when i dig the nameserver for spongecat.com my internal IP comes up as the record as opposed to the external IP i've set it to.. as a result i cant see my website now let alone get email.

[terryoleary1981]

seems the nameservers are finally propagated and i can see my website again. But i'm not able to receive email only send it. When i send an email to admin@spongecat.com i get the following bounce back.

  <admin@spongecat.com> (spongecat.com: No greeting from remote host)

I've been informed port 25 is open by my provider and it is open on my router, I've tried to telnet the server on port 25 but connection was refused. Or could there be another reason?

[terryoleary1981]

after speaking to my broadband supplier port 25 is defintely open on their network so something must be stopping the mail getting through, can anyone give me some pointers of what to do or where to check?