Help - Zone File Editing

Zone File Editing

[cgory]

Hello all:

First off, I just want to say how great this forum looks. I stubled across this literally 5 minutes ago, and from what I've seen so far, this is the answer to many headaches I've gone through over the years.

Here's my question (and if I'm posting it in the wrong forum, I apologize). I want to update our "Zone File", so that all incoming emails get automatically forwarded to my email server, rather than to our ISP (currently, our email server logins in ever 5 minutes, and downloads the email to the local users). I've edited the Zone File so that it reads:

IN MX 10 (followed by the machine address)

I did the same for "IN MX 100" and "IN MX 110". Is this all I need to do in order for all incoming email to bypass my ISP?

Thank you in advance.

[txbakers]

very close.

MX records need to find a server by name, not IP.

So, first you would create an A record as follows:

mail.mydomain.com 100.100.100.100

Then, create your MX record as follows:
domain.com 10 mail.mydomain.com.

(and you do need the ending period after the domain)

The "10" is the priority if you have multiple mail servers. I just have one, so I use 10.

And WELCOME to the Webmaster World Forums and the Techology Board!

[cgory]

txbakers:

First off, thanks for your help & kind words. Please excuse the simplicity of my question - I've never really had much reason to change the settings in the zone file, so I'll really need some help here.

Our ISP provides a web-based program for editing the zone file, so it should be pretty straight-forward (I hope). When I log into the section called DNS Manager, I get a screen with the following settings:

FTP IN A (followed by IP address belonging to my ISP)
MAIL IN A (followed by IP address belonging to my ISP)
POP IN A (followed by IP address belonging to my ISP)
SMTP IN A (followed by IP address belonging to my ISP)
WWW IN A (followed by IP address belonging to my ISP)

Then I have changed things so that it says:

IN MX 10 (followed by my machine's DNS name)
IN MX 100 (followed by my machine's DNS name)
IN MX 110 (followed by my machine's DNS name)

Do I need to make any additional changes?

Thanks again for all of your help.

[txbakers]

looks good:

IN MX 10 (followed by my machine's DNS name)
IN MX 100 (followed by my machine's DNS name)
IN MX 110 (followed by my machine's DNS name)

the DNS name should be whatever it says for mail.domain.com

it will take several days to propagate across the web, before you see the changes.