Re: CEICW settings for static IP - need advice



Great explanation, thanks!

"SuperGumby [SBS MVP]" <not@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Om$fQ4WgIHA.484@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I think you've made some assumptions Mike may not assume.

Mike, you have a name, 'whoopingcrane.org'. People normally acess your
website, which is properly hosted elsewhere, as www.whoopingcrane.org and
you wish them to send you email@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx If email is also the
responsibility of an outside party they handle all this, but we want to be
responsible for email so we hit some fun.

You see, we could simply point whoopingcrane.org to your SBS, run the
CEICW,
job done. BUT, people wishing to access your website may forget about
typing
www, and would arrive at the wrong location. Your web host knows people
and
he has pointed whoopingcrane.org to the same IP www.whoopingcrane.org.
People typing either http://whoopingcrane.org or
http://www.whoopingcrane.org end up at the web server.

We need to tell DNS 'yeah, all the above is OK but I want to handle email
on
a different server.'. Enter MX.

Without an MX entry mail servers send email to the NAME for the domain (in
your case, the webserver, whoopingcrane.org 205.178.152.31, which is also
known as www.whoopingcrane.org).

So, we need to in some way distinguish your SBS (public IP) from
whoopingcrane.org and then tell everyone that it, not whoopingcrane.org,
is
responsible for handling email. We distinguish it by giving it a DNS name
(normally but not necessarily in the domain) and we tell everyone that it
is
responsible for email by setting that name in an MX record. Not just any
MX
record but the one with the highest priority, lowest weight.

The NAME can be anything we want (as Lanny has pointed out). 'mail' is
fine
and historically popular but as our users move away from accessing the
server remotely _just_ for email I'm preferring 'remote' or 'office' and
for
multiple location sites 'city' or 'suburb' (eg. sydney.whoopingcrane.org).

There is no reason for you not to continue to use mail.whoopingcrane.org,
and no real reason why this name be used.

There is also no problem having both this and DYNDNS names.

"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"
<lanwench@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message
news:uZbI4cWgIHA.5160@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mike Webb <mikewebb@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Running SBS 2003 Premium SP2 with 2 NIC's, ISA 2004, WSUS 3.0,
Exchange, SQL, T1 connection.
==========
For several years I've used the Custom DNS service at dyndns.org and
have been quite satisfied. However, I recently upgraded to T1 with 5
static IP's. Our website is hosted by Network Solutions.

OK, but neither of these really has any bearing on your public DNS.....

I recently went through a (very stressful) server rebuild that lasted
3 weeks (!). Had to mostly start over from scratch. One of the good
things that came of it is that it forced me to review every setting
and every process I do on the server while I bring it back to it's
former capability.

We've had some problems with email, just minor, and while I dug into
the CEICW (and reviewed the posts at
https://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2004/09/03/12962.aspx and
http://www.sbs-rocks.com/sbs2k3/sbs2k3-n2.htm), I got to wondering
about the entry for the domain server and mail server. I've used
"whoopingcrane.org" and "mail.whoopingcrane.org", but the more I look
at "mail.whoopingcrane.org" the more I wonder about it. Is it
something I need to "spell out"? Is it just used in the MX record?

It's an A (address) record that points at your public IP, and is set up
as
your MX record. There's nothing wrong with it. If you change ISPs, and
have a new public IP, you merely modify the IP addres specified in the A
record mail,whoopingcrane.org


I'm really not sure; a vendor set our SBS up for us 4 years ago and
since then we've gone from dial-up ISP to satellite ISP to
landline/T1 ISP and I don't remember why "mail" was used.

Um - because it's the most logical name when you're talking about MX
records? They could've used fluffybunnyslippers.whoopingcrane.org - it
doesn't matter. It's just a name. As long as it's set up right & matches
where it needs to match, there's nothing to change or worry about.

Never
thought to question it. Could someone point me to a resource, or
provide advice on what is common for a small org with a static IP on
a T1 to do in the CEICW settings?

Your CEICW should configure your LAN settings - the only thing it will
ask
you about your public domain is what email domain you use
(whoopingcrane.org) and your SSL cert (which you've probably created
yourself, and which should also be mail.whoopingcrane.org or whatever A
record you use to access your server via OWA, RWW, RPC over HTTP).

Remember: your public DNS has nothing to do with your private / AD DNS.

On a related note, I started with dyndns.org for the DDNS service.
Now that we have a static IP, should I scale back what I have? What
do others recommend? (For those who use dyndns.org and also have a
static IP.)

You still need someone external to handle your DNS - I like DynDNS
immensely. There's no reason to change. Your changing ISPs has no
bearing
on it - and you're best off not having an ISP or webhosting company
manage
it. I'd leave it be.


Many thanks in advance!
Mike Webb
Platte River Whooping Crane Maintenance Trust, Inc.
a conservation 501(c)(3) non-profit organization







.



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