Mail Server setup

[split63]

I have set up the mail server on my Win 2003 server.

The Server/Machine is named SERVER
The domain is domain.com

My question is, what do I set the incoming and outgoing Mail servers to on the client? Would it be mail.domain.com?

I have the DNS via zoneedit.com and I have set the mail server to mail.domain.com for domain domain.com

Looking through the windows help files, I got the impression I should set the DNS entry to SERVER.domain.com for domain domain.com?

Is the actual machine name (Server name); SERVER, used in the DNS or in the client POP3 settings? IT seems to me that the Machine/Server name is hidden to the world and is unimportant.

 

[split63]

In the above I should have asked; should the client's email server settings be set to:

Incoming: mail.domain.com
Outgoing: mail.domain.com

Or

Incoming pop.domain.com
Outgoing smtp.domain.com

or ???

 

[normntwrk]

Your DNS record should have an "A" record that points to the server, a CNAME record for the mail.domain.com and a MX record that points to your e-mail server

MX signifies an e-mail server

Norm

 

[split63]

normntwrk,

The A record is there, as the server has been dishing out the domain.com web pages for a while. The MX record is there and is set to mail.domain.com
CNAME is apparently an alias? My understanding is that most do not need a CNAME. I don't have one configured.

MY question(s) above are more to do with the actual entries needed in the client as a result of the Win 2003 Email server setup. Please see my second response. At this point I have tried both forms, and neither works. It may be some other issue, not sure.

Part of my confusion is with the Machine/Server Name as described in my first post. The Win 2003 help files had a specific examble where the DNS entry was set to SERVER.domain.com. This seemed wrong since the world does not know the SERVER name.

There is one pontential task that I have not done. Its descibed here:

http://www.ilopia.com/Articles/WindowsServer2003/EmailServer.aspx

In the section "Configure the SMTP Server". It seemed odd to me that the Windows Install Wizard would not handle this, so I did not bother with this section. But I will give it a shot and see if it suddenly starts working

 

[split63]

I added the task described at that link above and I found it to already be in place except that the Windows Authentication was not checked....Not sure its correct to check it but I did. Still it fails.

The message from my Pop3 client is:
" the host "mail.domain.com" could not be found.

The part that troubles me here is that no where did windows ever indicate that after setting up a email server for the domain domain.com would the "mail server" be named "mail.domain.com". If you follow the directions described in the link in the above post, the mail server would just be the domain name; domain.com.
In the end I know this is a simple fix.

 

[split63]

Found the problem.

I did not realize I needed to create separate "A" record for "mail.domain.com"

See, it was simple in the end.

Thanks for your help

 

[normntwrk]

Glad that took care of it, I think the CNAME might have cured it also as it is an "Alias"

Norm