Add an MX record

[#1]

HI recently I wanted to renew my Microsoft Action Pack subscription but they now require me to be a Global Admin... to do this I need (for some reason) to add a TXT record to my domain, which Plus Net don't allow. However they do allow adding an MX record.

Sadly though the place where you add the record has 4 fields to fill in, namely, Left Field, Type, Pri, and Right Field.

So on the MS site it says (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/admin/get-help-with-domains/create-dns-records-at-any-dns...) ... Not being a network person but more a vba developer I'm a bit lost.

I think Left Field should be @, Type = MX, Pri (leave blank) but as for Right Field...??? 

If anyone can hep I'd be most happy - I'm sure it's not that difficult, really.

Cheers

Mark

[#2]

I am a bit of a newbie on all of this, so take what I say here with a massive pinch of salt and I am sure someone will correct me.

With MX I would set a Pri of say 10. That's if you have multiple servers the internet will try the one with the lowest priority first and if it can't reach that server it will try the others.

I use Office 365, and a handy site is MX Toolbox. This is what I have my domain set up as (personal details removed):

Pref	Hostname	IP Address	TTL
10	[Domain Removed].mail.protection.outlook.com	104.47.5.36 Microsoft Corporation (AS8075)	60 min	Blacklist Check      SMTP Test

I only assume the right hand side is the hostname of where you need to get the mail delivered to. The IP address field has been looked up I assume so is not part of the MX record.

[#3]

@brainstorm  I think youre correct on the left field. I would think that the right field should contain what M$ specify as the Value field. As for priority, if the mx is actually being used for mail delivery then 10 is probably ok, if its purely for validating the domain then use 999999 as that will ensure its at the lowest priority and wont be used for mail delivery.

[#4]

Forgot about that @MisterW. Good point. 

I remember having to create temporary custom DNS records on my domain, which was a bit of a pain. Just to prove you own it and of course it can queried publically. I had to do that when I set up Office 365 and somehow managed to do it (don't ask me how!).

Annoyingly (for me) I can't remember if it were A records (I think so), CNAME (less likely) and I don't ever recall having to use a PTR record.

[#5]

Thanks for that Alex - sadly though not much help as what I need to do is know what to add to the Right Field... note what it says about Host names for MX records:

MX records

MX records specify a mail exchanger for a domain name: a host that will either deliver or forward mail for the domain name (e.g. through a firewall).

Each MX record should be assigned a priority (from 0 to 65535). An attempt is made to deliver mail to each server from 0 first and then to the next highest priority number.

We will automatically include an MX record for your domain, for the server mx.last.plus.net. This will allow you to have a mail relay for your domain if you only have a single mail server.

Note: This is only a relay server for incoming email, it cannot be used for sending email, nor retrieving email directly.

You should make sure:

• The right hand side of the record doesn't contain an IP address.
• The right hand side of the record doesn't contain a CNAME.
• A host shouldn't be named in both a CNAME AND MX record.
• Also, avoid a lack of MX records, or records that declare priority when they probably shouldn't (because the host being pointed to isn't accessible).

The most common problem is a lack of full qualification. You should look for the full stop at the end of the hostname (you can find this on the right-hand side).

[#6 · Accepted solution]

Alex, MisterW, Thanks both ... in fact after much wrangling with MS they set up a 365 account for me and made me a Global Admin so then I could subscribe to get the Action Pack.

So although I never actually found out how to do it, I did get to where I wanted to be - thanks again for you suggestions.

I did try Left field = @, Type + MX , Pri = 10 and Right Field = MS=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The long number that MS gave me but for the TXT value However it didn't work so MS support got me through

Cheers

Mark