All about DNS...

What is DNS

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and decentralized naming system for computers, services, or other resources connected to the Internet or a private network. It translates domain names to the numerical IP addresses needed for locating and identifying computer services and devices with the underlying network protocols.

Wikipedia

MX record

An MX record points to the server that accepts messages for your domain name. Multiple MX records pointing to different mail servers may exist for one domain name. In case when multiple MX records are created, each MX record usually has a priority represented by a number. The less the number is, the higher the priority of the MX record.

What is an MX record? What is the correct syntax for MX records?

An MX record, or Mail Exchange record, is a DNS record pointing to the server that is responsible for handling e-mail for a given domain.

For example, to point the domain name domain.com to a mail server with the IP address 123.45.67.89, the following two records has to exist:

domain.com        IN     MX   10 mail.domain.com. --> set by the customer

mail.domain.com   IN     A        123.45.67.89 --> set by the hosting provider

where "10" is the preference.

Speicherblock specific settings

The Speicherblock MX record should be set in the DNS zone with preference 10 like this:

@                            MX         10           mx.speicherblock.at

Autodiscover record

An Autodiscover record is required for automatic configuration of mail clients (e.g. Outlook). It is also required for some important Exchange server services that will be unavailable if theAutodiscover record is missing. Although basic Exchange functionality (like sending and receiving messages) will work even if the Autodiscover record is missing, we strongly recommend to create the record to avoid any issues that may arise when it is missing.

What is an Autodiscover record and why do I need one?

In order for the Speicherblock Hosted Exchange and Outlook or ActiveSync clients to function properly, you must have a special DNS record set up for your domain name which points to our Autodiscover server.

You will need to create a CNAME record called "autodiscover.yourdomain" that points to our Autodiscovery DNS record: adr.speicherblock.at.

autodiscover             CNAME                  adr.speicherblock.at

IMPORTANT: Due to the distributed nature of DNS, the CNAME record you created following the instructions in this article may take up to 2 days to propagate across the Internet. In other words, you will be able to take advantage of the AutoConnect feature only when DNS changes have fully propagated. If you do not know how to check that, just wait for a few days and then try to configure a new Outlook profile using this feature.

Some features that will not work properly without an Autodiscover record:

• Outlook or Activesync mobile device setup using Autodiscovery
• Free/Busy information in your calendar
• Out of office autoresponse messages
• Proper syncing of offline address book 

The SPF record

Setting an SPF (Sender Protection Framework) record is an antispam measure. It defines servers which are used for sending messages for the given domain. All other servers (not mentioned in SPF record) sending messages from your domain are considered as servers used by spammers. Utilization of SPF record can reduce the number of spoofed messages coming to your users' Inboxes.

What is an SPF record? What do I need to do about it?

Due to the fact that a significant majority of SPAM comes from forged (spoofed) addresses, a Sender Policy Framework (SPF) standard is being implemented by a number of ISPs and mail hosts, including several major providers (Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc). Those providers require SPF to be used in order to allow mail through their networks. Mail systems need SPF records for their domains if they want their mail to be accepted by those providers.

To comply with this standard and ensure successful delivery of mail sent by Speicherblock clients, SPF records have to be created for all of the domains hosted by us.

You need to add the following TXT record to ensure successful email delivery:

@            TXT        v=spf1 a:mx.speicherblock.at -all

This sets the outgoing mail exchanger servers to be valid senders from this domain.

Allow email sending from various IPs or domains

In case, you have a website that utilizes an email sending functionality using your domain, or any other email sending service that is not hosted on our platform, you will need to give all the related domains and IP addresses in your SPF record for the email sending to work. The following online tool might be useful, or contact us, and we're happy to help.