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>I am pretty new to dns and I am having a little problem with one of my
Re: I have a mail loop error I need help with.
From: Chris Buxton
Date: Monday, March 29, 1999
Time: 6:25:00 pm
>domains. We are using virtual hosting for the domain
>www.smoke-stoppers.com. I have EIMS running on another server and I am
>trying to use it to handle the mail for the smoke-stoppers domain. I have
>a form that is sending mail through EIMS to
>manager@mail.smoke-stoppers.com and EIMS is giving me an error: WARNING!
>mail loop exists for mail.smoke-stoppers.com
>
>Here is the setup:
>
>smoke-stoppers.com. NS primary-ns.macsultants.com.
>
>www2.smoke-stoppers.com. A 208.159.4.21
>smoke-stoppers.com. MX 10 mail.smoke-stoppers.com.
>
>www.smoke-stoppers.com. A 208.159.4.24
>mail.smoke-stoppers.com. A 208.159.4.101
A mail loop is caused when mail is forwarded around in a circle. It is
commonly caused by a server trying to send mail to itself. Here's why it
might do this:
A mail server receives a message. It looks at the domain name in the To:
field. It first compares this against its internal list of names for which
it's responsible. If it isn't responsible (at least according to its
internal list), it looks up the MX record(s) for that domain and forwards
the message to a mail server that is responsible. However, if the DNS tells
the server that it is ultimately responsible for the message (has the MX
record with the lowest-numbered priority), it either sends the message to
itself and starts over, or notices, puts up an error message, and does
whatever its programmer felt like having it do with the message.
Of course, a mail loop can also be caused by other misconfigurations of a
mail server. For instance, EIMS can automatically route all messages for a
particular domain to another server. That includes messages for domains
that EIMS is supposed to handle, so that the other server would just send
it right back.
The upshot is, Charles, does EIMS on <mail.smoke-stoppers.com> know it's
responsible for <smoke-stoppers.com>?
________________________________
Chris Buxton
Internet and Database Consultant
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