Mail Exchange (MX) Records


Mail Exchange (MX) record is used to identify an email server for the domain so that other servers can send messages to it.

  • in typical network, multiple servers are installed to provide redundancy
    • each one is represented with an MX record
    • each server record is given a preference value
      • lowest numbered entry is preferred
  • the host identified in an MX record must have an associated A or AAAA record
  • must not point to a CNAME record