SMTP & local MX records

[Dirk Bogaerts]

Hi,

I'm taking my first steps with SMTP & local MX records...without much succes. According to the documentation, the MX routing lookup should take the local MX records first. I was hoping to direct all my outbound SMTP to the gateways specified in local MX records, but the BIND MX records (W2K DNS) with less preference (=higher Preference values) are the only ones taken into account, according to the TCPIP$SMTP_LOGFILE.LOG (with log_level 5). Included herafter, the TCPIP Config & MX details and an extract from the log.
All help welcome !!

TCPIP> show vers
Compaq TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS Alpha Version V5.1 - ECO 5
on a COMPAQ AlphaServer DS20E 833 MHzP running OpenVMS V7.2-1


TCPIP> show conf smtp
SMTP Configuration
Options
Initial interval: 0 00:30:00.00 Address_max: 16 EIGHT_BIT
Retry interval: 0 01:00:00.00 Hop_count_max: 16 RELAY
Maximum interval: 3 00:00:00.00 HEADERS

Timeout Initial Mail Receipt Data Terminate
Send: 5 5 5 3 10
Receive: 5

Alternate gateway: not defined
General gateway: not defined

Substitute domain: HIDDEN, BIGCORP.COM
Zone: not defined

Postmaster: TCPIP$SMTP
Log file: SYS$SPECIFIC:[TCPIP$SMTP]TCPIP$SMTP_LOGFILE.LOG

Generic queue Queues Participating nodes
TCPIP$SMTP_MYCOMPUTER_00 1 MYCOMPUTER



TCPIP> show mx
Local MX database

Destination Preference Gateway
SUBSIDIARY.COM 1 MYRELAY.A.B.C


TCPIP> show mx SUBSIDIARY.COM
Local MX database

Gate address Preference Gate name
11.177.111.1 1 MYRELAY.A.B.C

BIND MX database

Server: 10.116.11.1 DNS.A.B.C
Gate address Preference Gate name
199.77.44.11 10 smtp1.SUBSIDIARY.COM
199.77.44.12 20 smtp2.SUBSIDIARY.COM



TCPIP$SMTP_LOGFILE.LOG :
#smtp_sender_cmd\1362 Building MX record list.
Entering build_server_mx_list
#smtp_sender_cmd\2693 Entering new_smtp_sender_gate
#smtp$util\4697 MX Lookup for destination subsidiary.com
Dump of MX list for destination host subsidiary.com
Number of MX entries: 2
Expiration Date: 10-JAN-2004 04:19:48.05
Gate: smtp1.subsidiary.com, Preference: 10
Gate: smtp2.subsidiary.com, Preference: 20
Sender will relay mail to subsidiary.com using this ordered list of gateways
Number of MX entries: 2
Expiration Date: 17-NOV-1858 00:00:00.00
Gate: smtp1.subsidiary.com, Preference: 10
Gate: smtp2.subsidiary.com, Preference: 20
#smtp_sender_cmd\1037 entering connect_to_server
tcp_connecting to server smtp1.subsidiary.com
smtp_tcpc_callback entered function code TCPCON_CBCK_SOCKCMP
smtp_tcpc_callback socket is 4

[Veli Körkkö · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I just tested this with VMS V7.3-2, TCPIP V5.3 ECO 2 and it seems to work just fine (at least
on that version).

Essentially I did

$ tcpip set mx "xx.xx.cpqcorp.net" /pref=1/gate="xxxx.cpqcorp.net"

Now I have these two hosts on same lan so normally mail would go directly from one host to the other.

However, with above local mx record I was able to observe relaying via third node.

I found then an older VAX running unpatched V5.1 and managed to reproduce your problem there. Seems that MX records are case-sensitive so it does make (on V5.1)if you do

$ tcpip set mx x.y.z/gate=a.b.c/pref=1

versus

$ tcpip set mx "x.y.z"/gate=a.b.c/pref=1

With lowercase it works. With V5.3 it does not matter since all MX appear lowercase even if attemptign to do

$ tcpip set mx "X.Y.Z"/gate=a.b.c/pref=1


_veli

[Dirk Bogaerts]

Right on, Veli ! Now it works fine !
Never expected 'case-sensitivity' to play a role...
Thanks for taking the effort to compare different versions !!

dirk

[Willem Grooters]

Dirk,

No wonder.

TCPIP version 5 has been a port from Tru64, and case sensitivity and Unix-option-style have been kept untouched (IMHO this should have been prevented...).

[Dirk Bogaerts]

Aaah, if I had known V5 was ported from True64, case-sensitivity would indeed have crossed my mind...
Thanks, Willem !