[nycbug-talk] BIND and MX records

[alex at pilosoft.com]

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007, Rodrique Heron wrote:

> Hi Guys,
> 
> I inherited a bind server and I'm trying to clean it up, I noticed that
> allot of the host records have MX entries like this:

> mailstore01      A       192.168.2.1
>                         MX      10 mx1
>                         MX      12 mx2
>                         MX      14 mx3
> 
>  From what I understand, this forces mail sent to host.domain to always
> go through one of the MX servers. But is this necessary for the mail
> store ? Are their any known side effects ? I am trying to ascertain if
> it's causing an occasional problem I'm having with mail delivered to our
> domain bouncing with the following error:
No. If there's no hostname on the left, it means "domain" itself. In other 
words, the MX entries apply to the domain, not the hostname.

> Maximum hop count exceeded. Message probably in a routing loop.
That means message is bouncing between the mx's probably. Check that the
highest-priority mx is in fact accepting mail instead of bouncing it
around.

-alex