EmailDiscussions.com  

Go Back   EmailDiscussions.com > Discussions about Email Services > The Technical Zone...
Register FAQ Members List Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read
Stay in touch wirelessly

The Technical Zone... The Geeky forum... Use this forum to discuss technical aspects of email, from authentication protocols to encryption.

Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 12 Feb 2019, 11:10 AM   #1
alexu2007
Essential Contributor
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 287
Multiple MX records for backup purposes

Let's say I have a domain and email accounts at Runbox and Fastmail. Both Runbox and Fastmail forward the incoming emails to my Gmail account.

Is it ok to put both runbox and fastmail's MX servers in my domain DNS? (the domain is registered and activated both at runbox and fastmail, the same email addresses under this domain are set up at both places)

If I have mx.runbox.com with priority 10 and mx.fastmail.com with priority 20, will fastmail server be able to receive and forward the incoming emails if runbox is down?

Is it any conflict if I put the mxes from two different email service providers?

And to make things MORE complicated, I plan to use mailgun as smtp server

Last edited by alexu2007 : 12 Feb 2019 at 11:19 AM.
alexu2007 is offline   Reply With Quote

Old 20 Jul 2019, 10:08 PM   #2
TenFour
Master of the @
 
Join Date: Feb 2017
Location: USA
Posts: 1,683
I just came across this unanswered question. The problem with that configuration is that your incoming email could end up at either Runbox or Fastmail. Chances are most of the incoming email will end up at the service with the highest priority, but not all of it. One simple way to deal with this issue is to have your email forwarded to two different email providers. Some domain registrars have this capability built in, and there are services like POBox.com (reliable) that specialize in this. That way all of your incoming email will appear in two different places and you can set both places to send from a third party SMTP service if you want to! However, to me the more complicated you make your email system the more problems you encounter. For example, two different services have two sets of SPAM rules, and sometimes an email that gets whitelisted in one is not in the other and you begin to lose emails. Stuff like that. Both Runbox and Fastmail have been reliable and I suspect it is unlikely to "lose" any emails if one of them is down briefly. The way email works is typically the sending server will retry for awhile, and if an email doesn't go through for some reason the person at the other end will get a message that will prompt them to retry at a later date and/or contact you another way. I use Office 365 email at work and this happens surprisingly often with email sent to smaller email providers, but very rarely to a current and working email address at a major provider.

Last edited by TenFour : 20 Jul 2019 at 10:14 PM.
TenFour is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 26 Jul 2019, 12:35 AM   #3
jdtaylor
Master of the @
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Posts: 1,690
I honestly don't know.

What I have done myself, is pointed my incoming email servers at www.mxguarddog.com for spam and virus filtering. Basically for a small text link on your website, you get industry standard spam and virus filtering for free.

From that point the email goes to the main mail server and if it passes the check it's legitimate the email is delivered. Can I suggest, looking at someone who offers free hosted dns. These people may be able to help get things set up the way you want to. It does though seem odd if you want emails from one domain to go to two mail servers.

I've not done it, and personally just using spam filtering can solve most problems these days.
jdtaylor is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 26 Jul 2019, 08:45 PM   #4
janusz
The "e" in e-mail
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: EU
Posts: 4,933
Quote:
Originally Posted by jdtaylor View Post
What I have done myself, is pointed my incoming email servers at [www.mxguarddog.com for spam and virus filtering. Basically for a small text link on your website, you get industry standard spam and virus filtering for free.

From that point the email goes to the main mail server and if it passes the check it's legitimate the email is delivered.
  • Is the mxguarddog's "industry standard spam and virus filtering" any better that filtering offered by major email providers?
  • White/blacklisting with mxguarddog seems to be unnecessarily complicated (that's my reading of their FAQ).
  • And on top of mxguarddog's filters you'll have the email provider's set of filters which may be more restrictive. So some of the false positives may end up in two different places: spam folder and mxguarddog's quarantine
.

All in all this seems to me an unnecessary complication....
janusz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 26 Jul 2019, 08:59 PM   #5
TenFour
Master of the @
 
Join Date: Feb 2017
Location: USA
Posts: 1,683
Quote:
And on top of mxguarddog's filters you'll have the email provider's set of filters which may be more restrictive. So some of the false positives may end up in two different places: spam folder and mxguarddog's quarantine
I believe Mxguarddog asks you to turn off your email service provider's spam filter, if that is possible. I had this very problem you describe when using POBox.com's email forwarding service. It would trap some emails and others would be in the junk folder where the emails were delivered. Added extra work to the process of checking email.
TenFour is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump


All times are GMT +9. The time now is 03:49 PM.

 

Copyright EmailDiscussions.com 1998-2022. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy