IP Address, MX Record, A Record Question

Hi,

This is kind of a dumb question but I want to see if I can do this. I
have a single server running my domain and my exchange server. I have
a name for it inside the company, say server1.mydomain.com

Now when I create an MX record, do I have to use the
server1.mydomain.com, or can I just create an MX record for
mail.mydomain.com, then an A record to reflect the IP address of
mail.mydomain.com to the same IP as server1.mydomain.com. Though the
server is not named mail.mydomain.com, the records will still point to
the same IP.

This will work won't it?

So what I would have is my mail.myserver.com A record point to a public
IP that is static NAT to the internal server.

Thanks in advance.

 

Sounds good to me... You may want to change the name on your SMTP
connector to reflect the A record you are creating.

 

Yes, as long as you do it that way. The host named in an MX record
must not be a CNAME, so don't try

mail.mydomain.com IN CNAME server1.mydomain.com

but it is quite valid to have multiple A records that have the same IP.

Note, however, that especially if it is your outgoing mail server,
then hosts will do reverse DNS on the address, and some of them
might complain if the names do not match. You're probably fine as long
as the forward and reverse are in the same subdomain, but if they
are in completely different domains then various anti-spam systems
would refuse the email.