Can send bu not receive email

[3Saturns]

This is my first time setting up an exchange server from scratch, and having trouble. I am working with Verizon. I registered a domain name with them and had them set up an A record and MX records based on instructions from McAfee because I am using McAfee Total Protection for Small Business Advanced. I can send email, but I cannot receive. The sender gets a message undeliverable reply with this: Sat, 05 May 2007 19:18:02 -0500 (CDT)
Error reading SMTP packet; response to RCPT TO command expected

I can telnet from inside the network. I also did the nslookup and got the following results:

C:\>nslookup -q=mx domainname.com
*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.0.1: Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.0.1

Non-authoritative answer:
domainname.com MX preference = 100, mail exchanger = domainname.com.s8a1.psmtp.co
m
domainname.com MX preference = 200, mail exchanger = domainname.com.s8a2.psmtp.co
m
domainname.com MX preference = 300, mail exchanger = domainname.com.s8b1.psmtp.co
m
domainname.com MX preference = 400, mail exchanger = domainname.com.s8b2.psmtp.co
m
domainname.com MX preference = 500, mail exchanger = mail.domainname.com

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

[RichardHuang]

Can you telnet to port 25 of your email server from Internet?
> telnet Your-email-server 25
If you can, then type helo or ehlo and see what happens.

 

[3Saturns]

I do not have the ability at the moment to telnet from the internet. If I telnet the servername from the network, and type EHLO, i get the following results:

220 domain.com Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service, Version: 6.0.3790.1830 ready at
Tue, 8 May 2007 13:19:57 -0400
ehlo
250-domain.com Hello [192.168.0.102]
250-TURN
250-SIZE
250-ETRN
250-PIPELINING
250-DSN
250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
250-8bitmime
250-BINARYMIME
250-CHUNKING
250-VRFY
250-X-EXPS GSSAPI NTLM LOGIN
250-X-EXPS=LOGIN
250-AUTH GSSAPI NTLM LOGIN
250-AUTH=LOGIN
250-X-LINK2STATE
250-XEXCH50
250 OK

 

[RichardHuang]

The problem could be DNS resolution from Interent or your firewall settings. So to clarify the problem, it better to have someone telnet from outside.

 

[3Saturns]

Just to clarify I should type: telnet domain.com 25
from a PC command prompt from the internet

 

[3Saturns]

My outside contact could not telnet my domain on port 25. So, I had them do the nslookup -q=mx domain.com

They received the response:

server: nsphi101.verizon.net
address: 71.242.0.12

Non-authoritative answer:
domainname.com MX preference = 200, mail exchanger = domainname.com.s8a2.psmtp.com
domainname.com MX preference = 300, mail exchanger = domainname.com.s8b1.psmtp.com
domainname.com MX preference = 400, mail exchanger = domainname.com.s8b2.psmtp.com
domainname.com MX preference = 500, mail exchanger = mail.domainname.com
domainname.com MX preference = 100, mail exchanger = domainname.com.s8a1.psmtp.com

mail.domain.com internet address xx.xxx.xxx.x (my fixed ip address)

 

[RichardHuang]

should be something like that:
telnet ExchangeServername.domain.com 25 or
Telnet Exchange-Public-IP 25

The ExchangeServername.domain.com is the public name for your email server that the Interent users can resolve.

 

[RichardHuang]

based on your result, you could try this:
telnet domainname.com.s8a1.psmtp.com 25 or
telnet mail.domainname.com 25

 

[3Saturns]

Excuse my ignorance, but I am not sure what to use for Exchange Server name -- would this be the same as the A record such as mail.domain.com?

Is the exchange-public-IP different than the static IP assigned by Verizon?

Does the IP gateway (as setting on my router) come into play at all (it is slightly different than the static IP address)

 

[3Saturns]

I did have him try telnet mail.domain.com 25, and he could not connect

 

[RichardHuang]

Hi, based on your results, if any Interent email server wants to send email to your domain, they will contact the following servers in sequence:

domainname.com.s8a1.psmtp.com
domainname.com.s8a2.psmtp.com
domainname.com.s8b1.psmtp.com
domainname.com.s8b2.psmtp.com
mail.domainname.com

The lower the preference number, the higher the priority of the server. If the above names can't resolve correctly, no emails will be delivered correctly to your server.

 

[3Saturns]

Ok. I am at home today. I tried:
telnet domainname.com.s8a1.psmtp.com 25

I got the following results to EHLO:
220 Postini ESMTP 32 y6_10_2c8 ready. CA Business and professions Code Section 17538.45 forbids use of this system for unsolicited electronic mail advertisements.
ehlo
250-Postini says hello back
250-STARTTLS
250-8BITMIME
250 HELP

When I tried telnet mail.domain.com 25, I do not get a message of connection failure, but I cannot enter any commands either -- I just get a blinking cursor

When I tried telnet domain.com 25, I get:
Could not open connection to the host, on port 25: connect failed

 

[RichardHuang]

When I tried telnet mail.domain.com 25, I do not get a message of connection failure, but I cannot enter any commands either -- I just get a blinking cursor"
--> I do see some email servers are like that, so it could be normal.

I don't understand why you have so many entries for your email domain. How many email servers do you have? I have seen some configurations like that when the company wants the ISP queue the emails for them in case their email server is down. So who configured the public DNS for your domain? You might want to understand why it configured that way. One suggestion I could give is to change the MX preference of "mail.domain.com" to 50 and then see what happens. However it will take at least a few hours for the DNS info to populate in the Interent.

 

[RichardHuang]

Another suggestion:
go to

http://www.dnsstuff.com/,

where you can find "mail test" button. It might be helpful.

 

[3Saturns]

I looked up info on MX, NS, and A records. The MX records match what I previously reported, and one A record matches what I expected. I think the NS records are ok, but what about the other 2 A records?

domain.com. NS IN 86400 bigguy.gte.net.
domain.com. NS IN 86400 otherguy.gte.net.
mail.domain.com. A IN 86400 xx.xxx.xxx.x
bigguy.gte.net. A IN 86400 206.124.64.1
otherguy.gte.net. A IN 86400 206.46.254.13