RE: [cobalt-users] mail server addresses of mail.domain.com, pop.domain.com, smtp.domain.com...?

[Rodolfo Paiz <rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> can you set up a domain so that a user on this domain could
> set up his email client software with mail server addresses
> of domain.com, mail.domain.com, pop.domain.com, or
> smtp.domain.com all interchangeably?  if this would work,
> what DNS and raq site settings would you use to accomplish
> this?

Paul,

Short answer: point all names to the same machine.

Long answer: You're missing the obvious since the rest of it is
complicated. :) Here's how it works:

DNS points a name to a number...

     domain.com       -->          111.222.333.444
 pop.domain.com       -->          111.222.333.444
imap.domain.com       -->          111.222.333.444
mail.domain.com       -->          111.222.333.444
smtp.domain.com       -->          111.222.333.444

...so all these names point to the same machine.

Now, each service makes a request on a different port...

SMTP    25
POP3   110
IMAP   143

...so they don't conflict with each other.

This is the part you know. The part you missed:

On each port is ONE (1) server daemon. This program must decide which
requests are acceptable and which are not, and must categorize them
appropriately. Thus, Apache uses its configuration files to determine
which site you're looking for at 111.222.333.444 out of the 200 sites
hosted on that IP, and sendmail uses local-host-names and the
virtusertable to determine which domains it accepts mail for and what to
do with that mail once it arrives.

But all you have to do is get your mail client to ask 111.222.333.444
for your mail on port 110.

--
Rodolfo J. Paiz
rodolfo@xxxxxxxx <mailto:rodolfo@xxxxxxxx>