From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Oct 21 18:15:59 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mercutio.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (mercutio.EECS.Berkeley.EDU [128.32.138.80]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9D0CC14C2D for ; Thu, 21 Oct 1999 18:15:57 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from sowings@cory.EECS.Berkeley.EDU) Received: from mercutio.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (sowings@localhost.Berkeley.EDU [127.0.0.1]) by mercutio.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (8.8.6 (PHNE_14041)/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA23408; Thu, 21 Oct 1999 18:15:43 -0700 (PDT) From: Sanford Owings Message-Id: <199910220115.SAA23408@mercutio.EECS.Berkeley.EDU> To: "Ho Seng Yip" Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: DNS Record In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 22 Oct 1999 08:59:47 +0800." <002301bf1c28$d93d3540$0d7315a5@pc> Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 18:15:42 -0700 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > I have two SMTP servers and will like to edit the DNS record for the domain > such that if the first stmp server fails, the mail client should try the > second one. I have such a record, > > smtp 8H IN CNAME smtpserver1 > 8H IN CNAME smtpserver2 > > When I try to ping smtp.mydomain.com, it gives me the IP address of the > first domain and when I try to ping again, it gives me the IP address of the > second domain. > > Is this how it should be done? Nope. You should be using "MX" or "Mail eXchanger" records. This type of record tells DNS "hey, send mail here." You want your PRIMARY mail server to have a low number, like 5, and your SECONDARY to have a higher number, like 10 or 15. You'll also have to be careful with the setup of the second email server, depending on how your system is set up. From the DNS setup here: Trying DNS pasteur.EECS.Berkeley.EDU preference = 5, mail exchanger = pasteur.EECS.Berkeley.EDU pasteur.EECS.Berkeley.EDU preference = 10, mail exchanger = torus.cs.berkeley.edu I can also show you the specific entries in the DNS tables if you need to see them. -- Sanford Owings EECS Instructional Group Staff University of California at Berkeley To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message