DNS and hosted email

[albracco]

I was asked to look at a problem for a friend's company (public domain name abc.net). It seems that when their internal Windows domain was setup, it was given the same name (abc.net). When this was originally setup, they could not browse to their own web site from their network, so as a workaround, the consultant created an alias in DNS on the windows server that pointed

http://www.abc.net

to the actual server name at Network Solutions. That allowed them to see their web site. They recently moved their email to Network Solutions as well and now can not seem to connect to Network Solutions mail servers. My thought was the same thing was going on so I found what network solutions server mail.abc.net was pointing to and created a DNS alias. However, this has not solved the problem. They still can't access their mail servers on network solutions. This is a bit over my head, but I'm thinking there must be a better way to setup DNS in a situation like this. I could really use some instructions on how to do this the right way.

 

[djtech2k]

I would say that they will forever have problems because of the way its setup.

In this situation, check with the domain registrar/dns host and see where the MX record is pointing. The MX record is a special dns record for email hosting.

Thats just an initial stab at where to look first. As I said, their domain name will continue to haunt them.

 

[albracco]

No problems on the MX record side. They can send/receive via Network Solutions webmail just fine. Also, I can get Outlook to work properly from a different location. So it's definitely the way DNS is setup on their server - I'm looking for help on that.

 

[58sniper]

when you ping mail.abc.net, where does it go?

Is the firewall blocking any traffic?

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt

 

[albracco]

The problem is solved. I was right in my original thought that a cname alias was needed. Turns out Net Solutions gave me the wrong server name to point to. I got the right one and now it's working.

Thanks for the help!

Al

 

[kmcferrin]

In the future the best way to avoid that problem (not that you created it) is to use domain.local for your AD domain name and then domain.com/net/whatever for your external DNS domain name. It's less of an issue if you host your own Internet presence, but if it is hosted by a third party then these things tend to happen.

 

[albracco]

That's how I do it when I setup a domain. This one was setup by someone else, so I just have to deal with it as is.

Thanks...