I just want to clear some things up before I begin testing. I'll be looking for the best / most stable way to provide the Mail Server for a particular site on a different machine.

Here is the scenario:

The DNS for domain.com is pointing to a Web Hosting company. If this client wanted to move his/her mail server to me, what would need to be done on my part / their part?

I'm assuming I would need to add an MX record and a mail.domain.com A record on my DNS servers. Would this be all?

Would the client have to create a Host Record at his registrar pointing mail.domain.com to my IP?

If I were controlling the DNS for their Domain name this would be a piece of cake, but since there may be a situation arise where the client only wants Mail Hosting from me I'm researching the solution.

Thanks!

Your4 client would either have to change his MX record to point to your server directly, or leave his MX as mail.domain.com and change the A record for mail.domain.com to point to your mailserver.

MX can't point to IP-s, only to subdomains, in general something like mail.yourdomain.com. The subdomain point to IP. This is the way.

So you have to change nothing to MX. Change only the IP of the subdomain linked with MX. In this case mail.yourdomain.com.

MX are not required to point a A name in that domain. MX records could be pointed anywhere you want. Real Life example, my company is personal-geek.com and sfrealm.com is a customer of mine. Look at the output that dnsstuff.com gives me when looking at sfrealm.com MX records.

Answer:


Domain Type Class TTL Answer
sfrealm.com. MX IN 3600 mail.personal-geek.com. [Preference = 10]
mail.personal-geek.com. A IN 3600 69.93.178.114

I didn't said must be a subdomain of the same domain... can be what ever you want. If you want you can put mail.yahoo.com to your MX and so all your email will go to yahoo

I gotcha. I forgot about that the MX records require a FQDN instead of an IP.

Thanks for the replies, I'll be testing everything out starting next week.

I was just clarifying the answer for him. It's all good though. Hope it works out for you.

I'm still looking for a mail server for Windows that has the following features: IMAP4 (Required), POP3 (Required), SMTP (Required), Virtual Domain support (Required), SSL(Optional), Relay controls (required) and at a decent price. Merak Mail server is a good example but it's currently outside my price range. I'm currently using Mercury Mail/32 but it doesn't have the features I require (mainly, it won't let me use username and passwords for relaying, and lack of virtual domain support)

Have you looked at MailEnable Professional? I believe it fills in for all of those except for possibly SSL, not sure since I haven't set SSL up yet.

IMAP is required and MailEnable doesn't have it.

Doesn't exist free mail server with IMAP4.

You must pay for that. Also MailEnable Professional does not support IMAP.

I think the cheaper is Icewarp Merak. They support SMTP/POP3/IMAP4... Go and check it: www.icewarp.com

Actually, there are several free servers that support IMAP4. Mercury/32 at www.pmail.com and hmailserver at www.hmailserver.com. Both of those support IMAP4. Merak has caught my attention. Unfortunately, being a hoster, I need the multiple domain support and I can't afford 280 dollars right now.

I didn't considered Pegasus in fact (bad experience), while hmail was completely unknown to me. I'm going to test hmail (Right now dowloading ) Hope is good, looking that is free and also open source...

Looks good from info... Have you tested it Rabbit?

Pegasus, I'm not a fan off. Mercury mail server, great but has limitations. I have played around with hmailserver on a test box but haven't thrown it into production. Biggest problems, Doesn't allow you to bind to IP. Let me know if you have any questions or want some help or just to discuss because personally it would be nice to run some of this crap over with other geeks.

Just finished download. I'm trying with Virtual PC. I'll try later with a real win 2003 box. Binding is a problem, but anyway i think not a big one.

I'm impressed with db support. Looks good...

Virtual PC, wow, your a brave one, never impressed with that product. Now that's it's Microsoft I'm even more scared.

Man I wish I had known about those open source mail servers for Windows before I dropped the cash on the MailEnable license.

Well, I'm satisfied anyway, but free/cheap always sounds much better!

Do any of those Open Source Mail Server offer Web Administration and Web Mail built in?

Yes both. But anyway needs a full test before.
Commercial components are a little bit better at this point. They are tested better... So MailEnable is not a bad choice. The only problem i have with MailEnable is IMAP issue. I need that protocol...

hmailserver is in testing right now for my site. We were using Mercury/32 and may keep it around for listservs as it does excellent list server stuff.

Update, We bit bucketed hmailserver and just bit the bullet and bought Merak Mail server. Worth every penny. Perfect for any hosting site out there. I'm throughly impressed.