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View Full Version : A little hosting help



Ian Barley
08-30-2004, 6:43 PM
I host my webspace with Hostway and my DNS server is with Register.com.

I was recently stupid enough to take an upgrade path on Hostways e-mail service before I had to. Ever since I have been messing around with an intermittently functioning email and trying to get meaningful lucid responses from Hostway tech support.

They actually suffer the problem of so much tech support. They answer the question that you ask correctly but not quite completely and totally fail to give additional information necessary to the solution of the problem. So I thought I would see if any among this erudite band can help me better.

Basically, having "upgraded" the service at Hostway nothing worked at all. They told me that I had to change the mail server record and gave me an IP address to change it to. Register.com gives me an option to change an MX record which appears to be what they were talking about. I changed this to the IP address given and things started working again - which was good.

After a couple of days I noticed that my outbound mail was bouncing with a "relaying denied" message. I raised this with Hostway tech support and was told that I needed to set the MX record back to what it was before I changed it to what they told me to change it to. Needless to say I was getting confused so I pointed out to them that they had issued two directly contradictory instructions within a week and asked for clarification. The following is what counts as clarification!

When setting an MX record, you cannot point it to an IP address. You need to set one of the subdomains in your record to point to that IP address via an A record. You can then set your MX record for the domain to point to that subdomain. A mail subdomain is the one most commonly used to point to the mail server, but you can use whatever you wish..

I figured that this meant I should set the MX record to mail.adirondack.co.uk again which I have now done and everything has stopped working again.

I am at the end of my tether with Hostway and do not consider that they are going to contribut at all to the resolution of this problem but kinda hope that one of you guys might at least be able to explain what the hell an MX record and or an A record is?

Any assistance gratefully received

Michael Cody
08-30-2004, 9:38 PM
I host my webspace with Hostway and my DNS server is with Register.com.

Basically, having "upgraded" the service at Hostway nothing worked at all. They told me that I had to change the mail server record and gave me an IP address to change it to. Register.com gives me an option to change an MX record which appears to be what they were talking about. I changed this to the IP address given and things started working again - which was good.

After a couple of days I noticed that my outbound mail was bouncing with a "relaying denied" message. I raised this with Hostway tech support and was told that I needed to set the MX record back to what it was before I changed it to what they told me to change it to. Needless to say I was getting confused so I pointed out to them that they had issued two directly contradictory instructions within a week and asked for clarification. The following is what counts as clarification!

When setting an MX record, you cannot point it to an IP address. You need to set one of the subdomains in your record to point to that IP address via an A record. You can then set your MX record for the domain to point to that subdomain. A mail subdomain is the one most commonly used to point to the mail server, but you can use whatever you wish..

I figured that this meant I should set the MX record to mail.adirondack.co.uk again which I have now done and everything has stopped working again.




You take the IP address you need and create a "A" record where mail.adirondack.co.uk equals that IP address. Then the "MX" record will then be set correctly to mail.adirondack.co.uk .... may email servers don't work right when you use a static IP address. It all depends on how they are setup. See the pic's: