Feature request: DNS Manager > MX Settings

With all due respect, your suggestion pre-supposes an incorrect notion of what MX records are for and how they are used. MX records are used to assist mail transfer agents in routing email from source to destination. That's it. The content of MX records are not dependent on the requirements or policies imposed by any particular mail transfer agent. MX records are creatures of DNS (which no particular vendor controls)…not the mail transfer agent (or vendor).

See: https://practical365.com/exchange-server/mx-record

You can look at MX records using dig.

See: https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-check-domain-s-mx-mail-exchange-records-using-dig-command-on-linux

In short, there is no "Gmail-specific" or "Outlook/Exchange-specific" MX record…there are only MX records. RFC 974 specifies the standard for how mail routing uses the domain name system and discusses MX record content in some detail. Presumably all transfer agents conform to this standard. As with all standards, no matter how clear, they are subject to interpretation and vendor-specific/local-implementation configuration "enhancements."

Unless you are running a transfer agent on your Linode, you don't even need an MX record…ditto for SPF, DKIM and DMARC records too…and you don't need to set up rDNS.

-- sw

@stevewi With all due respect, I am not asking for a lecture on what MX records are. If people here at the forums will be met by "smart" answers like this, there will be lesser people writing here. It does not help the question being asked.

Anyway, What I am requesting is a simple solution using the DNS Manager. Right now, it automatically sets up mail.example.com (where example.com is the domain being added.) Some domains do not use their own mail servers and use G Suite or Exchange and the like. So a one-click solution where one can add for example ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM, ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM etc. by choosing the mail server they are using would be beneficial to a lot of people using Linode. DigitalOcean has this feature, as well as numerous control panels that have DNS servers built-in.

Hi @NocedaCloud! Thanks for the feedback. I've added your idea in to our feature request tracker so we can consider it for future updates to our DNS Manager.

If you ever want to give us feedback directly, you can send an email to feedback@linode.com . It goes directly to the team here and we read each email that comes in.

You write:

With all due respect, I am not asking for a lecture on what MX records are. If people here at the forums will be met by "smart" answers like this, there will be lesser people writing here. It does not help the question being asked.

With all due respect, I tried to show you that maybe your request wasn't for quite what you thought it was.

Anyway, What I am requesting is a simple solution using the DNS Manager. Right now, it automatically sets up mail.example.com (where example.com is the domain being added.) Some domains do not use their own mail servers and use G Suite or Exchange and the like. So a one-click solution where one can add for example ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM, ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM etc. by choosing the mail server they are using would be beneficial to a lot of people using Linode. DigitalOcean has this feature, as well as numerous control panels that have DNS servers built-in.

Then you are not asking for the DNS manager to configure MX records…or DNS at all for that matter. What you are asking for is for DNS manager to configure your user agent (mail client).

As I said, if you're not running a transfer agent on your Linode, you don't need an MX record (and you probably don't need the mail.example.com subdomain either).

-- sw

@stevewi Oh. You feel good about yourself? What you're contributing in this thread is wrong. Do me a favor and don't mind this thread. Your feedback is not welcome.

OK… Pretty childish…your loss; not mine.

-- sw

Thank you so much [[@mjones] (/community/user/mjones)] (/community/user/mjones).

Just as a reminder, our Community Code of Conduct encourages all users to be welcoming, considerate, and respectful. Even though disagreements may happen, let's do our best to find understanding about the disagreement. Knowing why there's a disagreement can provide insight into different viewpoints that may be helpful.