RE: [cobalt-users] MX record question / Raq4i

["Chris Demain" <cdemain@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

<snip DNS trivia>

I'm curious why, if all three MX to domain.com, why it can't be done thus:

@ IN SOA ns1.example.com [and other soa foo]

example.com.
	IN	A	10.0.0.1
	IN	NS	ns1
	IN	NS	ns2
	IN	MX	10	mail

www	IN	CNAME	example.com.
mail	IN	A	10.0.0.2


It seems to me that accepting mail for user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx is an issue for
SMTP server configuration, and not the responsibility of DNS, and that DNS
only becomes responsible when the MX for www != the MX for the domain.  It
is also my understanding that in absence of an MX, mail to *.example.com is
delivered to example.com's A record (i.e. I would think that it's much worse
for a domain A RR to be missing than it is for a domain MX RR to be
missing).

As a real-life example:
(not to pick on this company, it's just a pet-peeve)

$ host mwave.com
$ host www.mwave.com
www.mwave.com has address 192.216.185.10
$ host -t MX mwave.com
mwave.com mail is handled by 10 mailhost.mwave.com.
$

Personally, I almost always (i.e. only in special situations do I not) A the
domain to an ip, and CNAME www to the domain.

*awaits commentary from Jeff*

--
Chris Demain                                     cdemain@xxxxxxxxxxx
Systems Administrator                           (813) 839-7242 x3022
Sago Networks                              <http://www.sagonet.com/>
--
"The world is a very strange carrot, but the farmer is not worried at all"