> The purpose of the PTR record is for reverse dns right?

Correct

I tried to find this information on the site as I'm sure it's been covered numerous time, but I don't really know how to search for it correctly I guess. I installed Mercury Mail Transport System for the first time today on a Windows XP system. I have never set up or ran a Mailserver or a DNS server. I have a domain name that I would like to use just for practicing with this Mail Server. My domain is gamersvillage.com and it is registered with GoDaddy. If someone could tell me how to point to my domain to this mail server via godaddy that would be awesome. Like I said, I have no mailserver experience, but would really like to start messing around with this system. Thank you in advance for any help or links you can send my way!! And Happy Thanksgiving!!

-Chris

> I tried to find this information on the site as I'm sure it's been covered numerous time, but I don't really know how to search for it
> correctly I guess. I installed Mercury Mail Transport System for the first time today on a Windows XP system. I have never set up or ran a
> Mailserver or a DNS server. I have a domain name that I would like to use just for practicing with this Mail Server. My domain is
> gamersvillage.com and it is registered with GoDaddy. If someone could tell me how to point to my domain to this mail server via GoDaddy that

    gamersvillage.com, NS, ns2.bblabs.net
    gamersvillage.com, NS, dns1.localaccess.net

> would be awesome. Like I said, I have no mailserver experience, but would really like to start messing around with this system. Thank you
> in advance for any help or links you can send my way!! And Happy Thanksgiving!!

First of all you GoDaddy domain must have an A record pointing to the fixed IP address of the system running Mercury.  This could the the fixed IP address of you router that is doing a NAT transfer of port 25 to the IP address of the internal machine running Mercury.  There should also be a MX record pointing to this host name .

For example my host name tstephenson.com is hosted at GoDaddy with A records of mail.tstephenson.com and tstephenson.com pointing to 209.128.92.2 my fixed IP address connection provided by my ISP Bayarea.net.  

    tstephenson.com, A, 209.128.94.2
    tstephenson.com, MX, 30, mail.tstephenson.com
    tstephenson.com, MX, 10, mail.tstephenson.com
    tstephenson.com, MX, 20, mailrelay.bayarea.net
    tstephenson.com, NS, ns.bayarea.net
    tstephenson.com, NS, ns3.bayarea.net
    tstephenson.com, NS, ns4.bayarea.net


I also have a domain called linux-tstephenson.com (among others) and this one is fully hosted by GoDaddy.

    
    linux-tstephenson.com, NS, ns49.domaincontrol.com
    linux-tstephenson.com, NS, ns50.domaincontrol.com
    linux-tstephenson.com, A, 209.128.94.2
    linux-tstephenson.com, MX, 20, linux-tstephenson.com
    linux-tstephenson.com, MX, 0, mail.tstephenson.com

I setup the MX records in the A and MX records GoDaddy Zone File Editor, the PTR record for my IP address was set by the owner of the IP address, Bayarea.net, at my request to my primary domain name tstephenson.com.

If you do not have a fixed IP address then all bets are off.  You will need to host your domain someplace with a fixed IP address or you something like http://www.dyndns.com to track your randomly assigned IP address.  

Thank you very much! I will mess around with these settings this weekend and hopefully I will be able to get things going. Thank you for your help!

[quote user="Thomas R. Stephenson"]

I also have a domain called linux-tstephenson.com (among others) and this one is fully hosted by GoDaddy.

    
    linux-tstephenson.com, NS, ns49.domaincontrol.com
    linux-tstephenson.com, NS, ns50.domaincontrol.com
    linux-tstephenson.com, A, 209.128.94.2
    linux-tstephenson.com, MX, 20, linux-tstephenson.com
    linux-tstephenson.com, MX, 0, mail.tstephenson.com

I setup the MX records in the A and MX records GoDaddy Zone File Editor, the PTR record for my IP address was set by the owner of the IP address, Bayarea.net, at my request to my primary domain name tstephenson.com.
[/quote]

When you say GoDaddy fully hosts this address, do you mean that GoDaddy hosts your website but you receive all your mail via Mercury? The PTR part also has me a little confused as I am new to all this naming. Are there any good resources that I can check out and get a basic understanding of what I'm dealing with? Thanks!

> When you say GoDaddy fully hosts this address, do you mean that GoDaddy hosts your website but you receive all your mail via Mercury?

Nope, it means that GoDaddy has registered the name for me and it is providing the DNS for this host name. I entered the A Record, MX record, etc data at their site.  I have another domain, tstephenson.com that is registered via GoDaddy but the DNS services and hosting is done for me by my ISP bayarea.net.

> The PTR part also has me a little confused as I am new to all this naming.

The PTR record is a record showing the domain name assigned to the  IP address.  There can be many other domain names pointing to this same IP address but there will normally only be one domain name in the PTR record.

> Are there any good resources that I can check out and get a basic understanding of what I'm dealing with? Thanks!   

The best place to start is by reading the RFC's associated with mail services, RFC 2821 and 2822.  There are others as well but these two will be enough for a start.

Thanks! I'm going to check out those RFC's now. The purpose of the PTR record is for reverse dns right?