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Does the MX record of the fully qualified domain name used as an MX record matter?

For example, let's say that example.com has MX records which point to:

mx01.example.com
mx02.example.com

But mx01.example.com and mx02.example.com each have their own MX records which point to:

mx01.googlemail.com
mx02.googlemail.com

The individual A records of mx01.example.com and mx02.example.com are correct for the sending and receiving of email for example.com, but can their own MX records interfere with anything if it's set to something else?

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  • mx01.example.com and mx02.example.com aren't MX records, they're A records. The fact that they have mx in the name doesn't make them MX records. Your MX records may "point to" these A records, but they are not MX records themselves. An MX record specifies which host or hosts is/are responsible for mail. The MX record "references" or "points to" an A record.
    – joeqwerty
    Mar 30, 2017 at 14:54
  • @joeqwerty Example.com has the MX records which point to the subdomains I've mentioned (mx01* and mx02*). I just chose my words poorly, that's all. Mar 30, 2017 at 14:58
  • 1
    I misunderstood then. My apologies.
    – joeqwerty
    Mar 30, 2017 at 16:10
  • this sounds like backscatter nightmare Apr 2, 2017 at 19:02

2 Answers 2

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A mail system wouldn't do an MX query for mx01.example.com, but instead just do an A record query for it, so this shouldn't interfere.

This sounds like a bad, confusing and error prone idea anyway. Why would you do this?

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  • Set different MX records pointing elsewhere to your MX hosts.
    – Sven
    Mar 30, 2017 at 14:58
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    It's just a holdover from a previous setup. It's not a design choice. I was just curious. Mar 30, 2017 at 14:59
  • Unless someone sent an e-mail to [email protected] instead of [email protected]. Mar 30, 2017 at 20:58
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The described configuration literally means the following:

Emails destined for *@example.com use servers mx01.example.com and mx02.example.com (resolving their A-records normally).

Emails destined for *@mx01.example.com and *@mx02.example.com use servers mx01.googlemail.com and mx01.googlemail.com (again, resolving their A-records normally).

This is not a conflicting configuration, but it is very odd.

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