Ok, first, thank you for your continued help. I don't think we are completely understanding each other, but it's ok and I appreciate you sticking with me on this.
Now, just to clarify a few things:
1. I am using this machine also as a secondary DNS server, thus my reluctance toward the split dns issue.
2. I am using tinydns / djbdns and not bind.
In case you care to include it in your help docs, this is a good explanation for doing split dns using tinydns:
djbdns FAQ
I have gone ahead and set this up. and you are right, it was pretty straight forward and does seem to be the way to go.
Unfortunately, I am still getting the exact same issues after doing an uninstall and fresh install. The errors and behavior is identical to what I posted above. Here are the results of your tests, you initially asked me to run:
host `hostname` <-- use backticks not single quotes
Code:
host `hostname`
zmail.tipit.net has address 192.168.1.250
zmail.tipit.net mail is handled by 10 zmail.tipit.net.
dig yourdomain.com any
Code:
; <<>> DiG 9.3.3rc2 <<>> zmail.tipit.net any
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 56441
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;zmail.tipit.net. IN ANY
;; ANSWER SECTION:
zmail.tipit.net. 85479 IN MX 10 zmail.tipit.net.
;; Query time: 0 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.1.13#53(192.168.1.13)
;; WHEN: Sat May 10 12:33:15 2008
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 49
dig yourdomain.com mx
Code:
; <<>> DiG 9.3.3rc2 <<>> zmail.tipit.net mx
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 65386
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;zmail.tipit.net. IN MX
;; ANSWER SECTION:
zmail.tipit.net. 85428 IN MX 10 zmail.tipit.net.
;; Query time: 0 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.1.13#53(192.168.1.13)
;; WHEN: Sat May 10 12:34:06 2008
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 49