Fully Qualified Domain Name for qmail

[tennisone]

I am in the process of installing qmail on a new dedicated server (i.e. test server). However, my live website and domain is on another server hosted by another ISP. The goal is to eventually rehost my website and move my domain to the new dedicated server.

In the interim I am installing and configuring qmail on my test server so that I can become familiar with qmail. As part of configuring qmail, qmail either needs to be able to determine your host's fully qualified domain name in DNS or you can provide it manually.

Since qmail as part of running ./config can't determine my FQDN, I need to provide it manually by running ./config-fast. Because my current domain is pointing to the existing other server, what FQDN can I use temporarily to at least test and play with qmail? Can I form the FQDN using my test server's hostname and IP address (from my initial research I don't believe that this is possible)?

Another I idea that I had would be to create a subdomain on my existing other server and have it point to the new test server. I then could use the subdomain for the FQDN for qmail. Obviously this approach requires more effort.

Once my website is moved over to the new dedicated server I then can reconfigure qmail to use my existing domain name.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Wishdiak]

tennisone,

Unless you're running a DNS server on the same test server, you can use a domain name that doesn't point to that particular server. This will work for outgoing messages (unless some other mechanism prevents it).

For incoming email, you should set up a DNS MX record that points mail for your domain to your test server.

I hope that's clear enough.

Wishdiak

http://www.wishdiak.com

 

[tennisone]

Hi Wishdiak,

Sorry for the delay in responding, but I was on vacation with my family.

Let's take a step back so I can be clear as possible. The hostname of our new server is ded503-lin-172-3.netsonic.net (this is what I see when I type hostname at the command line). The IP address for the new server is 66.180.172.3

As I mentioned in my original e-mail, the registered domain name tennisone.com is currently being used by our live server which is running under a different ISP.

Without having to register a new domain name to test our new server which is under development, what fully qualified domain name should I use during the qmailrocks.org installation process (I am following the RedHad 9.0 notes). Specifically, in Part 9 of the installation it says to replace mail.example.com with your server's hostname for both the /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-pop3d/run and /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-smtpd/run files. Should I temporarily replace mail.example.com in these two files with:

mail.ded503-lin-172-3.netsonic.net

Eventually when our test server becomes the live server these should be changed to mail.tennisone.com.

Internally on the new server I have setup a tennisone.com domain that is recognized and I am able to send e-mails locally on the new server. The crux of my question is what the e-mail address should be when testing sending e-mail externally to the new server. For example, I have a user mail account for scapie@tennisone.com. Obviously, externally someone cannot use the tennisone.com domain since it is not known by the new server. Do I need to setup a DNS zone file to handle this correctly? And if so, what do I need to set? Netsonic does provide the ability to easily create a DNS zonefile. Should the domain name for the zonefile be just the host name (i.e ded503-lin-172-3.netsonic.net)?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

 

[Wishdiak]

tennisone,

I hope you had an enjoyable vacation.

Your host currently reports that its FQDN is ded503-lin-172-3.netsonic.net, which looks like it was provided by your ISP.

You'll want to set up a DNS zone for your domain, and use a CNAME to point another host alias (such as mailtest) to your server. You'll want to have DNS properly configured before you change the variables in /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-pop3d/run and /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-smtpd/run to match the FQDN of the host alias (mailtest.tennisone.com in this example).

You'd then tell qmail to accept email for your domain name in /var/qmail/control/locals and /var/qmail/control/rcpthosts.

Wishdiak

http://www.wishdiak.com

 

[tennisone]

I noticed that ded503-lin-172-3.netsonic.net and mail.ded503-lin-172-3.netsonic.net are
both already mapped to 66.180.172.3 (tested this by pinging to both)

Do I need to do the following steps (BTW I am running on RedHat 9.0)?

1. Add zone entry in /etc/named.conf file

zone "ded503-lin-172-3.netsonic.net" IN {
type master;
file "ded503-lin-172-3.netsonic.net.zone";
allow-update { none; };
};

2. Create file /etc/named/ded503-lin-172-3.netsonic.net.zone

Inside this file add the entry for

mailtest.tennisone.com IN CNAME ded503-lin-172-3.netsonic.net

3. Shut down named
rndc stop
rndc reload
4. Start named
named -u named

Thanks for being patient with me, as you can tell I am in learning mode.

 

[Wishdiak]

tennisone,

That depends on how your DNS is set up.

If you're using your RedHat box to provide DNS for your box, then you could set up a master zone in BIND as above. Don't forget to add a MX record.

If you want this mail server to be routable from the public internet, you'll need at least 2 authoritative DNS servers that answer for your domain.

Wishdiak

http://www.wishdiak.com