Finding name of mail-server

for a domain

[Nick_W]

Anyone know how I can do this?

Have a client that just can't seem to give me this info... (the name of their mail server)

Thanks...

Nick

[mat]

Depends a lot on how things are configured - guess you saw that coming, eh?

If they have a true domain then try using the IP - that works for us. Alternatively, may just be as simple as smtp.domain.com and pop.domain.com. If that doesn't work, just take them out and shoot them for being so lame.
Maybe a good look at the header of a message sent from them would do the trick?
Mat

[jackofalltrades]

Try the website of their hosting service.

I just changed the mailserver details of a domain of mine and the company had the details on their website in the FAQ / support section.

However, if your client is the hosting service, then i agree with mat, a shooting is called for. :)

JOAT

[Nick_W]

Yeah, they have their own in-house mail server...

Can't I do some kind of whois like thing?

<loads bullets>

Nick

[andreasfriedrich]

[af@server af]$ host -v -t MX aaroncarter.com

will produce something like this:

Trying "aaroncarter.com" 
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 28270 
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 2 
; 
;; QUESTION SECTION: 
;aaroncarter.com.  IN MX 
; 
;; ANSWER SECTION: 
aaroncarter.com. 3600 IN MX 10 sitemail.everyone.net. 
; 
;; AUTHORITY SECTION: 
aaroncarter.com. 3600 IN NS NS.womasters.com. 
aaroncarter.com. 3600 IN NS NS.womaster.com. 
; 
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: 
NS.womaster.com. 125231 IN A 209.133.114.240 
NS.womasters.com. 125231 IN A 209.133.114.241 
; 
Received 155 bytes from 192.168.0.10#53 in 302 ms

The host listed in the answer section will handle the mail.

[Nick_W]

Fantastic, how do I work out what host to try (or do you mean their domain?)

Nick

[Nick_W]

Should have tried it first really shouldn't I?

Thanks Andreas, worked a treat ;)

Nick

[Dreamquick]

Do you want pop3/imap (where they pick the mail up) or smtp (which actually sends their mail)?

To find the name of the correct smtp server (this works under w2k and XP but not sure what other OSs will do) - it should be noted that this will only be the name of the server where incoming mail is supposed to be delivered, not necessarily the server the client could use to send their mail out from.

Get to a comand prompt / command console;

1) type "nslookup" and hit return
(the nslookup program starts inside the console window)
2) type "set type=mx" and hit return
(this now changes the mode to lookup mailserver name)
3) type the ending of the clients domain (e.g. if [e-mail] was the client then "example.com" is what you need to type in) and hit return

(the nslookup program will now attempt to determine the names of the smtp servers, it might look like this...

example.com MX preference = 5, mail exchanger = smtp.example.com
example.com MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = smtp.theirhost.com

...in this case mail should be attempted to be delivered to the server (the name that appears after "mail exchanger = ") with the lowest preference. If that fails, delivery should be attempted to the next lowest server in the list.)

- Tony