We would like to set up a mail server in house, but keep our web site at AZC. Can we do that?

Sure! As long as your domain name is used for regular virtual hosting at AZC (WebCard sites are not entitled to such special services). Please follow the steps below in the listed sequence to prevent the loss of any email messages during and after the switch of your email services from those offered by AZC to those provided by your own in house mail server(s).

1.) Set up your mail server(s), making sure you have created all user accounts, and have tested them using the telnet test to make sure they work for SMTP. If you plan to provide POP and/or IMAP on the mail server, you can use the telnet utility to test your mail servers as well.

2.) Once the aboce basic email functionality testshave passed, you will need to make sure your email server(s) are set up securely, so that spammers can't use them to relay spams to other parties. A good web tool is available at the following URL:
http://www.abuse.net/relay.html

• Make sure that every mail server passes all tests successfully! Putting up an open relay on the Internet is a very irresponsible thing to do. It can actually make your mail server(s) a hassle to other sites!
• Please note, running a mail server host that's connected directly to the Internet carries a big responsibility to your organization, and to others. It is not a trivial endeavor. Even though your PC software may promise an easy mail server setup, you may be biting off more than you can chew. For instance, do you understand and know how to deal with each threat discussed in Abuse of Internet e-mail? If not, then stop right away! You have much more to learn! For now, you are better off, both for yourself and your correspondents, to either keep using AZC's mail services or use the services provided by a reputable and well established email outsourcing provider.

3.) Once the previous two steps are completed, you will need to contact AZC via email. Please send the message to support@azc.com. In the message, you must include following:

• your domain name
• your Customer ID and PIN
• the IP address of your mail server
• Authorization for AZC to collect USD 25 DNS update service fee (if you pay by check, AZC will process your request after the check is cashed)
• an external email address to which AZC can send a task completion notice. Do NOT use somebody@yourdomain. You can always open up a free mail account at Yahoo!Mail for instance.

AZC will always use the fully qualified hostname a.mx.yourdomain for your first mail host, and, if you have more, the subsequent ones will be named as b.mx.yourdomain, c.mx.yourdomain and so on. This shouldn't be an issue, since the hostname of a MX host is not and should never be used directly by any end users in email communications. Inside your organization, you can name the machine anything you want, just keep in mind that to the public Internet, the host is named as {a|b|c...}.mx.yourdomain.

The above simple and clean naming convention is recommended by Prof. Bernstein, the creator of djbdns DNS server software, and the superbly reliable qmail mail server software.

Nevertheless, if you use a third party mail service provider's mail host(s), AZC will use the fully qualified hostname(s) of the third party provider instead.

4.) To minimize the possibility of losing any email messages to your domain, AZC strongly prefers to do the MX record update for your domain late Friday afternoon. However, if you prefer, we can do it earlier in the week. After AZC has updated the DNS for your domain, the new MX host should take full effect in about 24 hours. You are encouraged to empty all your POP accounts hosted on AZC's mail servers before the switch.

5.) 24 hours after you have received the email notice from AZC, please perform the following checks:

• Go to http://www.samspade.org/t/ and use the address digger to look up a.mx.yourdomain. Is it available at the IP address that you have provided to AZC?
• The above test makes sure that the public hostname of your mail server is visible on the Internet

If you have a PC running Microsoft Windows (98, 2000, or later), please perform the following tests:

1. open an MSDOS/command prompt
2. at the command prompt, enter nslookup

-or-
3. C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\NSLOOKUP
4. Once this utility is up, enter the following in the sequence shown:

• server azc.com
• set type=mx
• yourdomain

If you see a.mx.yourdomain as part of the returned answer, then you know the MX record is setup correctly by AZC.

Now you can get out of the nslookup utility by typing exit. Afterwards, please proceed to the next check;

At the command prompt, enter

1. nslookup

-or-
2. C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\NSLOOKUP as before, but skip the step server azc.com, and see what is the response for yourdomain.

Now you are testing the name server(s) that you use for your internal network. If the above do(es) not return with {a|b|c..}.mx.yourdomain, the name server(s) that you use internally do(es) not have the new info. You need to contact the party in charge of your internal name servers to see there is any potential problems with such a result. It's an issue that is beyond AZC's control.

Send a message from an external mail account (e.g. a Yahoo!Mail account) to see if your mail server gets the message.

Please note that AZC can only make sure the MX record is set up correctly for you, the rest is completely up to you. We are afraid that we can not assist you in the configuration or debugging of your in house mail servers. When in doubt, please carefully check the transaction logs of your mail server(s).

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