Why are my MX records not being found and working

Question

Ok I have been racking my brain for hours and have read every article I can find about MX records. I am just not sure why mine have stopped working. Here are my current MX records:

Domain TTL Record Type
newage.design. 14400 IN MX 0 mail.newage.design.
newage.design. 14400 IN MX 10 mail.newage.design.
mail 14400 IN A 162.246.57.163

Querying the authoritative nameservers for `newage.design` shows that there are no such `MX` records. Can you elaborate on the above "current" records? — Håkan Lindqvist, Oct 25 '15 at 14:41
What would you like to know? I will try to post the whole DNS Record — Tyler Radlick, Oct 25 '15 at 14:43
Are the servers `ns1.newage.design.` (`162.246.57.163`), `ns2.newage.design.` (`162.246.57.19`), `ns3.newage.design.` (`162.246.57.20`) the ones that supposedly have the records you are referring to? — Håkan Lindqvist, Oct 25 '15 at 14:45
The records above are created on the domain newage.design should they also be set for each NS? — Tyler Radlick, Oct 25 '15 at 14:48
Here are two screen shots of the records if this helps: http://newage.design/Record1.tiff http://newage.design/Record2.tiff — Tyler Radlick, Oct 25 '15 at 14:51
The screenshots show different TTL's that the original question. Have you recently transferred the domain or changed name servers? — h0tw1r3, Oct 25 '15 at 15:29

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 25 '15 at 18:05

I am not sure I understand what the problem is.

All 3 nameservers for the domain newage.design respond with proper MX record mail.newage.design with priority 10.

b-pi1:~# dig mx newage.design @ns1.newage.design

; <<>> DiG 9.8.4-rpz2+rl005.12-P1 <<>> mx newage.design @ns1.newage.design
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 41465
;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 4
;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;newage.design.                 IN      MX

;; ANSWER SECTION:
newage.design.          86400   IN      MX      10 mail.newage.design.

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
newage.design.          86400   IN      NS      ns1.newage.design.
newage.design.          86400   IN      NS      ns2.newage.design.
newage.design.          86400   IN      NS      ns3.newage.design.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
mail.newage.design.     86400   IN      A       162.246.57.163
ns1.newage.design.      86400   IN      A       162.246.57.163
ns2.newage.design.      86400   IN      A       162.246.57.19
ns3.newage.design.      86400   IN      A       162.246.57.20

;; Query time: 148 msec
;; SERVER: 162.246.57.163#53(162.246.57.163)
;; WHEN: Sun Oct 25 19:48:58 2015
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 170

b-pi1:~# dig mx newage.design @ns2.newage.design

; <<>> DiG 9.8.4-rpz2+rl005.12-P1 <<>> mx newage.design @ns2.newage.design
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 17781
;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 4
;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;newage.design.                 IN      MX

;; ANSWER SECTION:
newage.design.          86400   IN      MX      10 mail.newage.design.

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
newage.design.          86400   IN      NS      ns1.newage.design.
newage.design.          86400   IN      NS      ns2.newage.design.
newage.design.          86400   IN      NS      ns3.newage.design.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
mail.newage.design.     86400   IN      A       162.246.57.163
ns1.newage.design.      86400   IN      A       162.246.57.163
ns2.newage.design.      86400   IN      A       162.246.57.19
ns3.newage.design.      86400   IN      A       162.246.57.20

;; Query time: 151 msec
;; SERVER: 162.246.57.19#53(162.246.57.19)
;; WHEN: Sun Oct 25 19:49:01 2015
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 170

b-pi1:~# dig mx newage.design @ns3.newage.design

; <<>> DiG 9.8.4-rpz2+rl005.12-P1 <<>> mx newage.design @ns3.newage.design
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 44351
;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 4
;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;newage.design.                 IN      MX

;; ANSWER SECTION:
newage.design.          86400   IN      MX      10 mail.newage.design.

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
newage.design.          86400   IN      NS      ns1.newage.design.
newage.design.          86400   IN      NS      ns2.newage.design.
newage.design.          86400   IN      NS      ns3.newage.design.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
mail.newage.design.     86400   IN      A       162.246.57.163
ns1.newage.design.      86400   IN      A       162.246.57.163
ns2.newage.design.      86400   IN      A       162.246.57.19
ns3.newage.design.      86400   IN      A       162.246.57.20

;; Query time: 157 msec
;; SERVER: 162.246.57.20#53(162.246.57.20)
;; WHEN: Sun Oct 25 19:49:04 2015
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 170

From your screenshots I understand that you are using cPanel/WHM, and from your very poor description of the 'problem' I understand that you probably cannot receive mail from some hosts thus you came up with the idea that your MX records are problematic instead of describing your problem properly.

If that's the case then your problem is not with the MX records at all but with a recent update of cPanel which adds a delay to exim before presenting the client with the SMTP banner.
I appears that many many servers do not like this delay and timeout before they can send mails to cPanel servers.

cPanel says that they introduced this 'feature' to prevent spam, but IMHO this only causes problems and it doesn't solve anything really. Frankly I am tired of disabling this feature on every cPanel server that gets automatically upgraded the last few days.

https://documentation.cpanel.net/display/ALD/11.52+Release+Notes#id-11.52ReleaseNotes-DelaySMTPtransactionforincomingspam

Delay SMTP transaction for incoming spam

We added the Introduce a delay into the SMTP transaction for unknown hosts and messages detected as spam option to the Basic Editor section of WHM's Exim Configuration Manager interface (Home >> Service Configuration >> Exim Configuration Manager). This option configures the SMTP receiver to wait a few additional seconds for a connection when it detects spam messages.

Typically, legitimate mailing systems will wait past the delay, whereas spammers do not wait past the delay.

Note:

The system excludes the following remote hosts from the delay:
Neighbor IP addresses in the same netblock
Loopback addresses
Trusted Mail Hosts
Relay Hosts
Backup MX Hosts
Skip SMTP Checks Host
Sender Verify Bypass Hosts
Greylist Trusted Hosts
Warning

If your external monitoring system reports failures after you update your server to cPanel & WHM version 11.52, configure your monitoring system to allow 45 seconds timeout for connections to port 25. (Read your monitoring system's documentation for how to adjust the timeout and polling settings.)

If that does not resolve the problem, add the IP address of your monitoring system to the Trusted SMTP IP Addresses section of WHM's Exim Configuration Manager interface (Home >> Service Configuration >> Exim Configuration Manager).

If you still encounter errors on your monitoring system, disable the Introduce a delay into the SMTP transaction for unknown hosts and messages detected as spam setting in the Basic Editor section of WHM's Exim Configuration Manager interface (Home >> Service Configuration >> Exim Configuration Manager). However, this will likely result in an increase in spam that your server receives.

So most likely you need to disable the option Introduce a delay into the SMTP transaction for unknown hosts and messages detected as spam on WHM on Home >> Service Configuration >> Exim Configuration Manager

That should solve your issues.

Ryan Babchishin · Answer 2 · 2015-10-25T17:10:31.943

Why are my MX records not being found and working

It seems there is an MX record there. What makes you say that?

Dig shows this

newage.design.          21599   IN      SOA     ns1.newage.design. tylerradlick.gmail.com. 2015102532 86400 7200 3600000 86400
newage.design.          21599   IN      A       162.246.57.20
newage.design.          21599   IN      MX      10 mail.newage.design.
newage.design.          21599   IN      NS      ns1.newage.design.
newage.design.          21599   IN      NS      ns2.newage.design.
newage.design.          21599   IN      NS      ns3.newage.design.
newage.design.          21599   IN      TXT     "v=spf1 +a +mx +ip4:162.246.57.163 ~all"

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
mail.newage.design.     86400   IN      A       162.246.57.163
ns1.newage.design.      86400   IN      A       162.246.57.163
ns2.newage.design.      86400   IN      A       162.246.57.19
ns3.newage.design.      86400   IN      A       162.246.57.20

host -t ns newage.design

newage.design mail is handled by 10 mail.newage.design.

So mail should work. But the priority 0 MX is missing. Not that it matters since you had it going to the same server. I see you may have removed it according to those tiffs you linked to.

mail.newage.design was initially very slow to respond. And I tested a few more times and now it doesn't respond at all. Perhaps this is what's causing you trouble?

I think it is. I also found that my DNS was being cached and though the values were right they were not being sent for some reason. I restarted my server and cleared the cache and now they seem to be working. Any thoughts on the reason for the slow response? — Tyler Radlick, Oct 25 '15 at 18:08
@TylerRadlick Cha0s had a possible explanation for the delay in his answer — Ryan Babchishin, Oct 25 '15 at 18:11
ahh I'm using the app and I didn't see the other answer I will change credit and read the post. Thank you! — Tyler Radlick, Oct 25 '15 at 18:13

Why are my MX records not being found and working

2 Answers2