DNS Zone file config for mail server
 

I've got a web server that sometimes sends out mail. Because of the configuration of my ISP, all servers inside my building will not resolve by external IP address so I had to set up a DNS server to resolve the servers that are internal (such as intranet.foo.com, mail.foo.com, and www.foo.com)

The problem is that my web server is sending the mail but it's not getting there. The mail ends up staying local and this what I get:

<viniosity@foo.com>: Name service error for foo.com: Host found but no data
record of requested type

--0E70617E21.1063766702/voyager.eco
Content-Description: Delivery error report
Content-Type: message/delivery-status

Reporting-MTA: dns; voyager.eco
Arrival-Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 22:45:02 -0400 (EDT)

Final-Recipient: rfc822; viniosity@foo.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; Name service error for foo.com: Host found but
no data record of requested type

--0E70617E21.1063766702/voyager.eco
Content-Description: Undelivered Message
Content-Type: message/rfc822

Received: by voyager.eco (Postfix, from userid 1000)
id 0E70617E21; Tue, 16 Sep 2003 22:45:02 -0400 (EDT)
To: viniosity@foo.com
Subject: testsubject
Message-Id: <20030917024502.0E70617E21@voyager.eco>
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 22:45:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: vw@eco.com (Vincent)

This is test mail

--0E70617E21.1063766702/voyager.eco--


Here is the zone file for foo.com on the eco.com server:

;
; BIND reverse data file for local loopback interface
;
$TTL 604800
@ IN SOA foo.com. root.foo.com. (
1 ; Serial
604800 ; Refresh
86400 ; Retry
2419200 ; Expire
604800 ) ; Negative Cache TTL
;
@ IN NS foo.com.
1.0.0 IN PTR localhost.
IN MX 10 dns.mail.foo.com ; mail server
;
#www CNAME dns
ftp CNAME dns
#smtp CNAME dns
pop CNAME dns
proxy CNAME dns
news CNAME dns
;

mail A 192.168.1.8
www A 192.168.1.14
intranet A 192.168.1.237
;



mail.foo.com does resolve to 192.168.1.8 but as detailed above I get an error saying host found but no data record of requested type. Am I missing something in my zone file? Else, maybe something is wrong with the IN MX 10 dns.mail.foo.com line? Help!

TIA,

You've got several problems here...

This is a forward file, so no PTR records are needed/allowed.

Delete the comment at the top as its not valid.

Your TTL is WAYYYYYYY too long... If any other
servers are using this information, they will cache it
for a month which will make it hard to change.
Use 60 seconds until you get it working, then use
86400 (1 day) after that.

The negative cache time should be much shorter than
a month - more like 60 seconds - 1 day at the max.

Is your DNS server really named "foo.com"?
I've changed it to dns.foo.com, as thats
what I *think* you meant.

dns.mail.foo.com doesn't have an A record....
thats the big problem.

Although sendmail might bitch about the MX
record pointing to a CNAME, postfix will be
fine with it, and its cleaner in my opinion.

I've re-written the zone file for you here:


$TTL 86400
foo.com. IN SOA foo.com. root.foo.com. (
1 ; Serial
604800 ; Refresh
86400 ; Retry
2419200 ; Expire
3600 ) ; Negative Cache TTL

IN NS dns.foo.com.
IN MX 10 mail.foo.com

dns IN A 192.168.1.8
www IN A 192.168.1.14
intranet IN A 192.168.1.237
mail IN CNAME dns.foo.com.
ftp IN CNAME dns.foo.com.
pop IN CNAME dns.foo.com.
proxy IN CNAME dns.foo.com.
news IN CNAME dns.foo.com.

Fricking parser removed the spaces which are significant!

Oh well, I can't figure out how to get it to preserve space,
so I've just made it verbose (added in all the zone names).

$TTL 86400
foo.com. IN SOA foo.com. root.foo.com. (
1 ; Serial
604800 ; Refresh
86400 ; Retry
2419200 ; Expire
3600 ) ; Negative Cache TTL

foo.com. IN NS dns.foo.com.
foo.com. IN MX 10 mail.foo.com

dns IN A 192.168.1.8
www IN A 192.168.1.14
intranet IN A 192.168.1.237
mail IN CNAME dns.foo.com.
ftp IN CNAME dns.foo.com.
pop IN CNAME dns.foo.com.
proxy IN CNAME dns.foo.com.
news IN CNAME dns.foo.com.

I'll give it a shot. Thanks for your help!

I'm going to go ahead and make your chances on my primary DNS server. But for my web server I made this change and it started working:

foo.com. IN MX 10 mail.foo.com. ; mail server

(foo is just a random name.. not the actual name)

I found a really nice FAQ here:

http://support.algx.net/cst/dns/dns2.html

Thanks for your help though.. of all the forums I tried this is the only one I got a response on!