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Sorry if this is crazy sounding or not feasible, just a student trying to toy with Exchange in my own lab.

I'm using ad.chigs.me as my FQDN for my Active Directory install on Windows Server 2008 R2. currently, I also use that domain for my Google Apps account, so I receive email on Google's servers because the MX records for chigs.me point to Google's servers.

Now, I have Exchange 2010 newly installed on my server. I can send mail to other domains, but if I try sending an email to Exchange, I get the following error:

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

 chiggins@ad.chigs.me

Technical details of permanent failure: Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550-5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does not exist. Please try 550-5.1.1 double-checking the recipient's email address for typos or 550-5.1.1 unnecessary spaces. Learn more at
550 5.1.1 http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?answer=6596 j1si5476356icn.36 (state 14).

Now, that makes me assume that it's trying to find a Google account "chiggins@ad.chigs.me", because of the MX records. My question is, would it be possible to set up Exchange in a way that it would accept mail NOT using MX records, or at least change some stuff around where anything @chigs.me would go to Google's servers, and anything @ad.chigs.me would go to Exchange?

Thanks much!

Chiggins
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2 Answers2

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Nope. Mail servers all live and breathe by MX records. Now, outbound email can be sent freely (statement made loosely) as long as you have an internet connection.

Inbound email, however, will not work for any domain (or sub-domain) that an MX record has not been created for.

I also just re-read what you said and wanted to clarify a little bit more.

When you installed Active Directory, if you chose the root zone to be 'ad.chigs.me' and not 'chigs.me' then you've made your domain authoritative ONLY for the SUBDOMAIN 'ad.chigs.me'.

If you wanted to forward DNS, and setup MX records for your server, you should've made the first domain controller authoritative for 'chigs.me', and then created a new MX record pointing to the IP (or mail CNAME) of your Exchange server (basically).

Finally....

If you DO have control over the top-level domain DNS, you can always create some DNS entries like this (although, MX records are still required)

chigs.me. 14400 IN A 216.34.94.184
ad.chigs.me. 14400 IN A 216.34.94.185
chigs.me. 14400 IN MX 30 chigs.me.
ad.chigs.me. 14400 IN MX 30 ad.chigs.me.

I hope that made sense, and if you need clarification, let me know.

Martijn Heemels
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JohnThePro
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  • Totally meant to just make it ad.chigs.me, wanted to keep that kinda separated for some other reasons. – Chiggins Feb 08 '12 at 00:11
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    JohnThePro: an MX record isn't strictly required for a domain to recieve email. Email can be delivered in the absence of an MX record if an A record for the domain exists. The issue today is that the domain A record usually points to the ip address of a web server for that domain as opposed to an email server for that domain. See my answer here for more info: http://serverfault.com/questions/314509/iis6-smtp-service-attempts-to-send-mail-to-domain-root-a-records-instead-of-mx – joeqwerty Feb 08 '12 at 00:53
  • Which makes enough sense. I was just merely trying to enforce the knowledge that whenever applicable, MX records are the FIRST thing a server checks for when looking for the ability to receive mail. Fall-back to A, sure, but how many DNS/Hosting providers really don't let you create MX records anymore? – JohnThePro Feb 08 '12 at 15:33
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Create an MX record for subdomain ad.chigs.me. that points to your Exchange server. Leave the MX records for chigs.me. pointing to Google. You must also remove the CNAME record that you currently have for ad.chigs.me..

Here's an approximation to your DNS data after doing this, presuming that 184.73.35.150 (for example) is the public IP address of your Exchange server:

;; chigs.me zone
@      604800 IN MX 10 ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
@      604800 IN MX 20 ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
@      604800 IN MX 20 ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
@      604800 IN MX 30 ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
@      604800 IN MX 30 ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
ad      86400 IN MX 10 a.mx.ad
a.mx.ad  3600 IN A  184.73.35.150

If you had a fallback SMTP Relay server on (say) 184.73.35.151, you'd add to the above:

ad      86400 IN MX 20 b.mx.ad
b.mx.ad  3600 IN A  184.73.35.151

Then, just setup Exchange's 'accepted domain' to allow ad.chigs.me, and add the ad.chigs.me domain to some mailboxes.

JdeBP
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Martijn Heemels
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  • I'm currently using GoDaddy (kill me) for my domains, do you happen to know how to add MX records for sub domains using their interface? – Chiggins Feb 08 '12 at 00:10
  • Using GoDaddy, you create an A record to define the subdomain, pointed to the IP of your Exchange server. Then you create an MX record that is pointed to the name of your subdomain. When you see the record for WWW, think of that as a subdomain following the sub.domain.tld format. Make sense? – JohnThePro Feb 08 '12 at 00:14
  • @JohnThePro - Sorry, I'm kind of a noob with DNS, here's my current config: http://imgur.com/TA6dE What should go where? – Chiggins Feb 08 '12 at 06:47
  • Sorry for the late reply. Basically, under the A(Host) section you'll create a record that says "Host: ad" "Points To:". Then, afterwards, you'll make a record in the MX section like, "Priority 10, Host: ad, Points To:ad.chigs.me" GoDaddy's help page for this exact thing (creating subdomains) is here. http://help.godaddy.com/article/4080#bounce – JohnThePro Feb 08 '12 at 15:24