MX Servers / DNS Zone File question

October 9, 2013 11:20 AM

I have a domain name hosted by GoDaddy. For a year or so now I've not had a website, I've just had some DNS settings which 1) routed my email to gApps using MX records and 2) allowed me to use Jabber through the domain name by pointing the XMBB

I now have a website so on Sunday I changed name servers to point at the webhost (Rackspace) and when that happened, Jabber stopped working but email did not.

I have checked what MX records my domain is returning using a couple of online tools and it's STILL returning the gmail servers I setup on Godaddy which I guess must be why email is still working.

I had read that changing nameservers would mess up the MX records (& that I'd need to change at the new name server?) but this hasn't happened...

When I now go to look at the zone file on GoDaddy I get "The zone file is unavailable because the domain's set nameservers do not belong to this registrar.".

This message took a couple of days to appear. For a long while I could still see and edit the settings.

When I check the MX record tool it shows:-
"Reported by ns.rackspace.com on 10/9/2013 at 1:18:01 PM (UTC -5), just for you."

so I guess the question is how does Rackspace know what MX servers I would like? Did it inherit them from Godaddy?

Thanks!

posted by dance to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

I don't have a rackspace account, but I assume you can login to their control panel and look at (and change) the DNS records they have for you, right? Do you see the MX records there? If you run 'dig [yourdomain] @ns.rackspace.com mx' on your own machine, what does it show you? I assume you've obfuscated the real domain in the link to the MX tool, so it's hard to get much information there.
posted by primethyme at 11:53 AM on October 9, 2013

If you changed your name servers with godaddy, then the zone file is managed by rackspace now. Godaddy's name servers aren't really in the loop any more.

It is possible that rackspace, at some point during the start up process, figured out that you were using google apps and automatically configured that for you, but I can't think of any reason why it would have inherited that information via DNS through the regular protocols.

When you query ns.rackpace.com for your MX records what does it return the google apps addresses?

A possibility is that there is a long ttl on the mx record information and it hasn't aged out of a lot of caching resolvers yet. If this is the case mail may stop working soon.

You have to figure out how to modify the zone file that rackspace maintains for you and make sure the MX records are set properly there. Once you can do that you should also be able to add the xmpp SRV records for jabber.
posted by NormieP at 11:57 AM on October 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Are you sure it wasn't part of the set up process? I know that a bunch of hosts have auto-setup for GApps, you just check a box and they fill it in for you.
posted by dozo at 12:59 PM on October 9, 2013

According to the Rackspace domain transfer support page (emphasis added):

After we receive confirmation from your domain registrar, we will transfer your current DNS settings automatically and set up your Name Servers. It can take an additional 48 hours for computers around the world to recognize the change to your domain's name servers, but no email will be lost during this transition, and there will be no interruption to your website or related services. Please do not cancel your current domain registration service until the transfer is complete.

posted by camcgee at 4:48 PM on October 9, 2013 [1 favorite]