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Outlook and a number of other email clients now feature autodiscovery of mail server settings and it bugs me that I don't have this set up for our domains, but I'm not sure how to do it and a quick google hasn't turned up anything. I presume it's done with some kind of SRV record in DNS - is this correct and if so what's the correct format?

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So far as I know, the (Outlook) feature requires Exchange 2007 or later.

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I don't think it's an exchange feature, because you don't have to put in the address of your mail server... – Whisk Aug 19 '10 at 16:59
Apologies - just found this exchangeexchange.com/forums/t/551.aspx - looks like it does use dns but is exchange specific... – Whisk Aug 19 '10 at 17:03
No worries, it wouldn't be the first time Microsoft had commandeered a bit of terminology and implemented it in a way that stomps all over someone else's standard. :/ – Kara Marfia Aug 19 '10 at 19:38
Yep, and again not for the first time it's one of those things that you wish the internet would manage to sort out a single standard for, but it never happens :/ – Whisk Aug 19 '10 at 22:22
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There is an Internet Draft for using SRV records for e-mail services. Summary:

  • SRV records like _submission._tcp SRV 0 1 587 mail.example.com. and _pop3, _pop3s, _imap, _imaps. (Last number is the port number.)
  • When offering both IMAP and POP, use the first number to show which is preferred (lower is preferable).

I don't know which MUA's already implement this. Maybe KMail. Thunderbird not yet?

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I think android does something like this... – Whisk Aug 19 '10 at 17:13
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