Hi,

A little history:
I outsourced my email because of email delivery problems. I couldn't figure out the correct DNS settings so that my mail wouldn't be rejected/marked as spam on account of no reverse DNS.

The problem:
1. I have 2 domains: domain1.com and domain2.com
2. I send mail through both.
3. I have rDNS through Linode pointing both of my IP addresses to domain1.com

4. When I send mail through domain2.com, the reverse DNS will not work because of the 2 IPs I have are already on domain1.com (I'm assuming) and will sometimes be rejected because of it.

My question:
How do I set it up so that:

1. I can send mail from both domain1.com AND domain2.com and the rDNS will pass without having a dedicated rDNS IP per domain I want to send mail through?

Currently, I have my MX entries as mx.fusemail.net and mx2.fusemail.net and SPF pointing to them also but I no longer wish to use their services. I want to host my own (and have done so in the past) but my DNS woes are the main problem.

THEY can figure out how to set things up so I'm sure there's a way to do it with my own setup?

Thanks!
Eternally Frustrated

How about starting with making sure you have your rDNS set. You do so by clicking on the "Reverse DNS" link off the "Network" tab for the appropriate linode. Make sure you have a valid A record for the IP you are wanting it set to before proceeding or you'll have to wait for the DNS cache to expire before it will accept it. See http://library.linode.com/linode-manager/configuring-dns-with-the-linode-manager towards the bottom.

Also your real domain name(s)/IP would be beneficial in diagnosing your problems.

--
Travis

The rDNS has been set in Linode's control panel for well over a year now.

I understand that it would make things much easier if I told you my domains. I don't include my domain(s) because:

1. Privacy - I don't feel comfortable airing my ignorance AND telling everybody where to exploit it.

2. My MX and SPF records are currently pointing off-site so nothing in there would be of any help.

I've read every bind/DNS article I could find and they still don't answer a basic question. What's worse, I'm too daft to figure out something that's apparently obvious to everybody else.

Again:

1. I have domain1.com and domain2.com
2. I have 2 zone files domain1.com.db and domain2.com.db

domain1.com.db


domain2.com.db


When I use mxtoolbox for domain2.com, it says that there's a problem because there's no reverse DNS entry for that domain.

Of course not, because both rDNS are pointing to domain1.com

But I know that there's got to be a way for bind to be configured in a way that will allow me to send through both domains without having a dedicated IP for each domain! Right?

I tried using something like (in DNS manager):



domain2.com.db


But when I clicked the "Check" button (assuming it's named-checkconf? It told me:

zone domain2.com/IN: domain2.com/MX 'mail.domain1.com' (out of zone) is a CNAME (illegal)

Yet there are no CNAMEs!

Believe me, These forums aren't my first line of support. I try as hard as possible to solve the issues I have on my own before coming here. With that said, any (real) help would be appreciated!

Thanks

I've figured everything out on my own (finally).

In case anybody else is ever confused as I am, here's what your bind files should look like (pertaining to MX and SPF entries):

named.conf

# Of course, youll always need your zone entries
# 64.22.NNN.NNN
zone "domain1.com" { type master; file "/etc/bind/domain1.com.db"; allow-query { any; }; };

# 64.22.NNN.NNN
zone "domain2.com" { type master; file "/etc/bind/domain2.com.db"; allow-query { any; }; };

domain1.com.db (ALL mail will be sent through this domain)

mail            IN   A   64.22.NNN.NNN

domain1.com.      IN   MX   10 mail.domain1.com.
domain1.com.      IN   TXT   "v=spf1 mx include:domain2.com -all"

domain2.com.db

domain2.com.   14400   IN   MX   10 mail.domain1.com.
domain1.com.      IN   TXT   "v=spf1 mx include:domain1.com -all"

I'm not sure if the include directive in domain2.com.db SPF is necessary but if it doesn't hurt anything, I ain't changing it.

Anyway, the main problem I was having is that I was trying to create 2 mail servers; one for domain1.com and one for domain2.com .. emails from domain2.com would always fail rDNS because rDNS was always set to domain1.com for both IPs.

Once I figured out that I only needed ONE mail server and could tell that server to allow domain2.com to send mail through it, things worked out fine. Getting that through my thick head was the problem.

ALSO! When I was toying with Linode's DNS Manager, it was confusing because the MX entry form separates the domain from the subdomain .. So instead of typing mail.domain1.com into the domain part, you have to type domain1.com in the domain part and type mail in the subdomain part of the form. If you don't, you'll get a strange error when you "Check" it.