[Info-vax] Are MX records mandatory to send mail from VMS to an SMTP server?

[Christoph Gartmann]

In article <30759835.617.1336461387046.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums at vbx14>, DTL <didier.morandi at gmail.com> writes:

>But I do have another question.
>
>Are MX records mandatory to send mail from VMS to an SMTP server?

No, a MX record specifies a "mail exchanger" IP address in case you use
a domain name that doesn't resolve to an address. For example, you have
three computers
   first.my.domain
   second.my.domain
   third.my.domain
As long as you send e-mail to "user at first.my.domain" there is no problem.
The same is true for e-mail to "user2 at second.my.domain" and so on. But now
you would like to send e-mail to "user at my.domain". Then you need an MX
record that returns an IP address for "my.domain". This could be the address
of "first.my.domain" or "second.my.domain" or even both or three. You may
add a preference number to each host address to specifiy which mailer should
be used beforehand.

>I understand MX records allow me to handle my mail by myself on my box or
>on my server on an ISP site.

Not necessarily.

>Today, I do NOT wish to do so.

So don't use an MX record.

>My VMS box has no domain published on the Internet and I do NOT wish to
>receive mail on it. My gmail account is fine.

No problem so far.

>The question is: Is it possible to separate send and receive? I mean,
>be allowed to send mail from the box to an smtp server on the Internet
>and configure nothing to be able to receive mail?

In principle yes, it is. You may use whatever SMTP address you want to send
e-mail to a remote SMTP host. But in times of spamming and fraud receiving
hosts do things like
- check, whether the connecting host has a DNS entry
- check, whether the DNS entry corresponds to the envelope FROM header
- check, wehther the connecting host is authorized to send e-mail from
  the sending domain
...

Thus, there may be some caveats.

Regards,
   Christoph Gartmann

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