DNS MX Records

[ltebay]

Thanks to ISP Config I'm moving from the Microsoft world to the Linux world.

I'm about to stop using the DNS service on my Windows 2000 server and switch to my new ISPConfig box. Both my servers are behind a firewall with port 53 (tcp/udp) currently forwarding to my Windows box. I was about to switch this when I thought I'd take a quick nslookup to see if everything was working on the ISPConfig machine.

When I do an NSLookup (all records) of a particular domain of my Windows box I get the following

Answer Section:
nextreformation.com, A, 216.197.193.198
nextreformation.com, NS, ns1.prairiefusion.com
nextreformation.com, NS, grace.theheresy.com
nextreformation.com, SOA, grace.theheresy.com, admin (Serial=2006030209, Refresh=15m, Retry=10m, Expire=1d, Minimum=1h)
nextreformation.com, MX, 10, mail.nextreformation.com
Additional Records Section:
ns1.prairiefusion.com, A, 216.197.193.198
grace.theheresy.com, A, 69.11.119.133
mail.nextreformation.com, A, 216.197.193.198

When I do an NSLookup (all records) of the ISPConfig Box I get the following
Answer Section:
nextreformation.com, A, 216.197.193.198
nextreformation.com, SOA, grace.theheresy.com, root.localhost (Serial=2006030502, Refresh=8h, Retry=2h, Expire=7d, Minimum=1d)
nextreformation.com, NS, ns1.prairiefusion.com
nextreformation.com, NS, grace.theheresy.com

I'm wondering why the MX record isn't coming up even though I have it set up. This is how it looks in the ISPConfig DNS Administrator.

CNAME
Hostname Target
www nextreformation.com

MX
Mailserver Hostname
mail.nextreformation.com nextreformation.com

[till]

Originally Posted by ltebay

MX
Mailserver Hostname
mail.nextreformation.com nextreformation.com

The hostname in the mx record must be empty. If you put nextreformation.com as hostname for the MX, it will result in an MX record for email addresses like: tom@nextreformation.com.nextreformation.com

The hostname in the MX in ISPConfig shall be always empty, except you have email addresses like tom@country.yourdomain.com, then the hostname of the MX record must be "country".