Fresh Installation (Continued)

[phoenix]

This entry in your named.conf should be the FQDN of you server, not the server name:

        IN      MX      10 mail

[Amin Kardan]

So, is this what I would change it?

;
; BIND data file for pdadmin.com
;
$TTL    604800
@       IN      SOA     pdadmin.com. admin.pdadmin.com. (
                         070616         ; Serial
                         604800         ; Refresh
                          86400         ; Retry
                        2419200         ; Expire
                         604800 )       ; Negative Cache TTL
;
@       IN      NS      mail
        IN      MX      10 mail2.pdadmin.com
        IN      A       192.168.1.2
mail    IN      A       192.168.1.2

[dwmtractor]

Amin,

Since this is a test environment and so everything is temporary anyhow, you might want to start over and use bind9 which is more secure than straight-on bind anyway. This wiki article is designed to take a plain-vanilla Ubuntu server install, configure bind9, and install Zimbra.

Unfortunately the syntax of the named.conf and a few other files is slightly different in bind9 than it is in old bind, so I don't have a good sense of debugging your current files, but this doc. has worked for a number of folks.

[Amin Kardan]

I'm not really concerned with security issues right now. Plus, shouldn't this work even if I'm using an older version of bind? I tried that article already as well. I will try it once more though. I didn't think this whole thing would become this complicated. I'm just probably mixing up some details.

[y@w]

Amin,

It's fairly simple once you get over this initial learning curve.. The details of what version of BIND really don't matter. You can find a good How-To to install BIND on Ubuntu from the Ubuntu wiki. You might find a little more help on BIND9, depending upon where you are looking. The bottom line is, for DNS setup for Zimbra, specifically in a NAT, you need this:
1) A DNS server that can resolve internal addresses (192.168.x.x, etc..)
2) An A record in that DNS server that is exactly the hostname of the Zimbra server
3) An MX record that links your domain to your server
4) Ensure that your Zimbra server is using that DNS server to do its lookups

If you're unsure of what these records are, I'd suggest doing a little more learning about DNS before diving into a project like this.

It appears you're almost there. The thing you need to keep in mind is that you'll need the MX record for your domain (now mail2.pdadmin.com) to have a matching A record (which you don't have in the last file you posted) and that they both match your hostname on the server (which also was different in the text you posted from the install, it was set to zimbra.pdadmin.com).

Also, just a little detail: in the MX line, your mail2.pdadmin.com needs to have a "." at the end. All FQDN's in your zone file need to have that dot. You can just say mail2 and it will append the .pdadmin.com for you. Otherwise BIND will read that as mail2.pdadmin.com.pdadmin.com.

[Amin Kardan]

I understand how a DNS works, it's just a little confusing for me because I'm doing it in Linux. I think I'm going to put this aside until my supervisor comes back next monday, and I'll run down all the things I did, and maybe he'll be able to help me troubleshoot the issue. I'm sure it's a configuration problem, because when I go to resolve the domain in the installation, it's saying that the MX record can't be found. Thanks for the encouragement, and patience though. I think I'll be popping a bottle once I'm able to send my first email successfully lol

[dwmtractor]

I understand how a DNS works, it's just a little confusing for me because I'm doing it in Linux. I think I'm going to put this aside until my supervisor comes back next monday, and I'll run down all the things I did, and maybe he'll be able to help me troubleshoot the issue. I'm sure it's a configuration problem, because when I go to resolve the domain in the installation, it's saying that the MX record can't be found. Thanks for the encouragement, and patience though. I think I'll be popping a bottle once I'm able to send my first email successfully lol

Actually, that may not be a DNS mis-configuration issue at all. Are you able to resolve your MX properly from the command line?

The install script has this little gem where, for example, if you set the hostname of your box to "mail.example.com" and then run the install, it fills in the FQDN as "mail.example.com" and says it can't resolve even though you saw it resolve just fine at your command prompt. If you change the domain in the install option (at that very prompt) to just plain "example.com" it runs flawlessly. I'm not sure WHY this is the case, I just documented that fact in the wiki because when I did it that way everything worked.

[dwmtractor]

Oh, and on bind vs. bind9 it's not that either shouldn't work; lots of us are using either one. But the syntax of the files is slightly different between the two, such that if you use a named.conf (or a couple of the other files, I forget which ones) that are perfect for one, you may have to add or subtract some dots or semicolons to get it to work on the other.

[Amin Kardan]

The thing is, I think it's a misconfiguration issue where I've just gotten confused as to what needs to be filled in where, and when it gets to the part (the little gem), it can't resolve because it gives these errors:

DNS ERROR - none of the MX records for pdadmin.com
resolve to this host
Change domain name? [Yes] yes
Create Domain: [pdadmin.com] mail2.pdadmin.com

        Interface: 192.168.1.2
        Interface: 127.0.0.1


DNS ERROR - none of the MX records for mail2.pdadmin.com
resolve to this host
It is suggested that the MX record resolve to this host
Re-Enter domain name? [Yes] yes
Create Domain: [pdadmin.com] pdadmin.com
        MX: mail2.pdadmin.com (216.249.3.126)
        MX: mail.pdadmin.com (192.168.1.27)

        Interface: 192.168.1.2
        Interface: 127.0.0.1


DNS ERROR - none of the MX records for pdadmin.com
resolve to this host
It is suggested that the MX record resolve to this host
Re-Enter domain name? [Yes]

I tried both domain names just to see if any of them could resolve. There has to be a mistake somewhere in my configuration, or on the DNS side. I'm sure once my supervisor comes in on Monday, we'll be able to figure out what the issue is. Once we get it work, I'm just going to reinstall everything from scratch again, and use bind9. I'm sure we'll want that in a real enviroment as oppose to just plain old bind just for the added security. I just can't wait to get this son of a gun working! lol

UPDATE: I changed my MX record from mail2.pdadmin.com to mail2.pdadmin.com. (with the "." appended). Now, I get a different output when trying to resolve:

DNS ERROR resolving zimbra.pdadmin.com
It is suggested that the hostname be resolveable via DNS
Change hostname [Yes] yes
Please enter the logical hostname for this host [zimbra.pdadmin.com] pdadmin.com
        MX: mail.pdadmin.com (192.168.1.27)
        MX: mail2.pdadmin.com (216.249.3.126)

        Interface: 192.168.1.2
        Interface: 127.0.0.1
                192.168.1.27
                192.168.1.27
                216.249.3.126
                216.249.3.126


DNS ERROR - none of the MX records for pdadmin.com
resolve to this host

[y@w]

Hey Amin, I didn't mean to imply you didn't know how it works. I think there's just something simple that's getting missed. You need to ensure that hostnames that you're putting into DNS are matching what your actual hostname is and that there's an MX record pointed at that host for your domain. You want to change the hostname to "mail2.pdadmin.com" instead of just pdadmin.com. One of the MX records for pdadmin.com should be pointed at mail2.pdadmin.com which it appears that's working. Then, you'll want to make sure that your DNS server is resolving mail2.pdadmin.com correctly. Run: dig mail2.pdadmin.com and post it. The IP address that the dig returns should be your internal IP of 192.168.1.2.