MX records error

Question

Hello I am running Xmail server in my VPS. My domain name is www.softmail.me and its DNS records are as follows

Host    Record type Value



65.75.241.26 / 24   PTR softmail.me.
accs.softmail.me.   A   65.75.241.26
beta.softmail.me.   A   65.75.241.26
ftp.softmail.me.    CNAME   softmail.me.
lists.softmail.me.  CNAME   softmail.me.
mail.softmail.me.   A   65.75.241.26
mssql.softmail.me.  A   65.75.241.26
mx1.softmail.me.    A   65.75.241.26
mx1.softmail.me.    MX (5)  mx1.softmail.me.
mx2.softmail.me.    A   65.75.241.26
mx2.softmail.me.    MX (15) mx2.softmail.me.
ns.softmail.me. A   65.75.241.26
sitebuilder.softmail.me.    A   65.75.241.26
softmail.me.    NS  ns.softmail.me.
softmail.me.    A   65.75.241.26
softmail.me.    MX (0)  softmail.me.
softmail.me.    MX (10) mail.softmail.me.
test.softmail.me.   A   65.75.241.26
webmail.softmail.me.    A   65.75.241.26
www.accs.softmail.me.   CNAME   accs.softmail.me.
www.beta.softmail.me.   CNAME   beta.softmail.me.
www.softmail.me.    CNAME   softmail.me.
www.test.softmail.me.   CNAME   test.softmail.me.

I am able to send emails to other mail systems but my email is been spammed by their spam filters. Also I am unable to receive emails from top email providers. I am sure that my IP is not black listed and experts says that the problem lies with MX records. Please verify the above records and help me how to set fix my error.

My mailbox outgoing domain/protocol : softmail.me:25
My mailbox incoming domain/protocol : softmail.me:110

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 27 '11 at 10:16

2

nslookup 65.75.241.26
Server:  solar.sslntwrk.lan
Address:  10.0.21.1
Name:    mail.comphoto.ch
Address:  65.75.241.26

Who serves the area softmail.me? Ask them to correct the reverse zone.

answered Jun 27 '11 at 10:16

Aleksandr Makhov

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I am the owner of that domain and IP... what are the above values? What should I do now? – Karthik Malla Jun 27 '11 at 10:23
Cucumber - How did you check those values? – Karthik Malla Jun 27 '11 at 10:29
Which DNS server you use to service the area softmail.me? I mean the name of the server (Microsoft DNS, BIND or other)? – Aleksandr Makhov Jun 27 '11 at 11:59
I don't know I am working on plesk panel provided by VPSland.com – Karthik Malla Jun 27 '11 at 12:06
You must create a reverse zone DNS on you DNS server, More about DNS, you can read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System#Reverse_lookup – Aleksandr Makhov Jun 27 '11 at 12:09
The server is hosting your service provider? Then you should write your provider and ask to change the reverse zone for 65.75.241.26 on softmail.me – Aleksandr Makhov Jun 27 '11 at 12:15
A PTR record is not going to solve the problem of not receiving email. – joeqwerty Jun 27 '11 at 12:20
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All the same, is to start with restoring order. And then so many CNAME, MX and A does not bode well. And i can connect whit telnet to 25 port 'code'(220 CT38733 <1309177619.24420@CT38733> [XMail 4.9.1.imap4.dk-i ESMTP Server] service ready; Mon, 27 Jun 2011 08:26:59 -0400) – Aleksandr Makhov Jun 27 '11 at 12:30

Carsten Thiel · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-28T16:34:39.503

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In your current setup a mail to user@softmail.me should be delivered to the mail server softmail.me with priority 0 (the highest). If that server is not available it should be delivered to mail.softmail.me (since it has the lower priority of 10). But both are the same physical server.

You also configure mail for user@mx1.softmail.me is to be deliverd to mx1.softmail.me and mail addressed to user@mx1.softmail.me to mx1.softmail.me. (again all the same physical server)

Are you sure that is what you want? Usually you only need an MX entry for the domain itself. As long as you use only one mail server you also need only one MX entry. (Usual values for priority are multiples of 10 [maybe 0 is also a problem]) Furthermore the MX of your domain must point to an A or AAAA entry. The reverse lookup of that IP should be the entry again.

In your case I only get

softmail.me.        600 IN  MX  255 mail.softmail.me.

which does not match your zone above. Maybe your provider has a problem parsing your data?

You do realise that DNS is heavily cached and it can take a while for the changes to be affective? It may be that a foreign mail server will not see the changes for up to 24 hours.

edited Jun 28 '11 at 16:34

answered Jun 27 '11 at 10:55

Carsten Thiel

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Now what should I do? How to over come this issue? – Karthik Malla Jun 27 '11 at 11:17
Since your reverse is `softmail.me`, just set your dns to `softmail.me. MX (10) softmail.me.` and remove the other `MX` lines. By this time tomorrow everything should work. (Of course your mail server has to identify itself as `softmail.me`) – Carsten Thiel Jun 27 '11 at 11:26
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The reverse lookup is immaterial for the IP addresses of the SMTP Relay _servers_. No one looks up that information for the _servers_. – JdeBP Jun 27 '11 at 11:47
The OPs problem is that foreign servers classify his mail as spam. And I am assuming that mail originates from the VPS mentioned. If the reverse address of this sending server does not match the name it provides this may result in positive spam values. Of course, non-existent reverse is much worse (and probably results in a hard reject) BTW if you do not look it up for servers, for what then? – Carsten Thiel Jun 27 '11 at 12:07
My take on the question is that the OP can't recieve email and that email he sends is being marked as spam, which are two distinctly different problems. Any answer should address those two issues independently. – joeqwerty Jun 27 '11 at 12:22
In addition, any email server that doesn't already have the MX and A record for the email server in it's DNS cache will find the corrected info immediately and will be able to send email accordingly. It's only email hosts that have the MX and A record cached that will have to wait until the TTL expires before getting the corrected info. – joeqwerty Jun 27 '11 at 12:24
_Servers_ do not send mail. SMTP Relay _clients_ send mail, and it is they whose IP addresses are looked up, by the servers. Of course, [there is nothing sensible that can be done with the domain name information so obtained](http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/dns-avoid-double-reverse.html). – JdeBP Jun 28 '11 at 08:52
OK, I was indeed assuming his VPS is doing both. – Carsten Thiel Jun 28 '11 at 11:14
Xe may well be. See [Karthik Malla's next question](http://serverfault.com/questions/284733/). But **what you wrote** is that the IP address obtained from the `MX` lookup must have a `PTR` resource record that maps back to the original domain name. You wrote that the twain "need to match". This is not true. – JdeBP Jun 28 '11 at 16:25
ok, I removed that. – Carsten Thiel Jun 28 '11 at 16:34

MX records error

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