[pmwiki-users] Re: [OT] Strange list DNS issues

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Sat, Mar 26, 2005 at 11:08:42PM +1200, Robin wrote:
> What it looks like to me (assuming the problem isn't at my end) is that 
> the DNS server(s) for pmichaud.com are sometimes flaking out and causing 
> it to sit in my mail queue for ages. Given that it's staying in the queue 
> and not being outright rejected makes it look like a temporary DNS error, 
> such as servers not responding. 

I've noticed as well that there are times when DNS for my domain(s)
doesn't seem to be responding well, I probably need to contact my
hosting service provider and ask them "what's up with that"?  I
suspect the problem is there.  If the problem continues I may need
to set up a secondary nameserver somewhere.

> However I'm not totally sure what a domain without a defined MX should 
> return, except there is no authority section, which strikes me as a 
> little odd. 

Any domain that expects to receive mail should have an MX record
defined for it.  I just checked and for some reason pmichaud.com
didn't have an MX record defined -- I don't know how/when that happened
but I've fixed it now.  Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

> I'm also not sure why it isn't falling back to the A record 
> (the mailserver is postfix, which is good one for doing the Right Thing, 
> so that implies that something is happening that means that it 
> shouldn't).

Many mail handlers default to an A record if an MX record is not
defined, but I remember reading somewhere that this behavior is
deprecated and that they aren't supposed to do this.

Thanks again,

Pm