MX only or MX+A for Email server? Beside, why multiple locations?

Question

I’m trying to set up my own Email server(s). It looks I need to add 2 DNS records, one MX and one A records ??

Type     Hostname                      Value                            TTL (seconds)
* MX     longervision.com           mail.longervision.com.    10     14400
* A        mail.longervision.com   159.65.68.90                    3699

However, after I specify these 2 records, I checked Networking->Domains again:

Domains:                                                Directs to
longervision.com                                   multiple locations
2 A / 1 CNAME / 1 MX / 3 NS

Why multiple locations? And is it OK to keep it as multiple locations?

After a while, I tried to telnet on the server:

jiapei@SERVERNAME:~$ telnet mail.longervision.com 25
Trying 159.65.68.90...
Connected to mail.longervision.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mail.longervision.com ESMTP
ehlo mail.longervision.com
250-mail.longervision.com
250-SIZE 11534336
250-ETRN
250-STARTTLS
250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
250-8BITMIME
250 DSN

After a while, I tried to telnet from my laptop

➜  ~ telnet mail.longervision.com 25
Trying 159.65.68.90...
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection timed out

But, telnet hangs there…

I seriously have NO idea where I’m wrong? Can anybody give me a hand please?

jarland · Accepted Answer

Hey friend,

Great questions! I wouldn’t worry about the multiple locations thing, that’s not a terribly important statement at this stage. You are correct that an MX record needs to be a hostname, so if you’re running the mail server yourself you’ll need an A record and then you’ll reference that A record as the MX record. MX cannot be direct IPs, basically. They’re just alias records, much like a CNAME.

As for your laptop, I would propose that either software on the laptop is blocking port 25 or the laptop is on a network that is blocking port 25. Try from another server to that one. If it still fails, reach out to our support team and see if SMTP is blocked on your account. If so, they may have a solution for you.

https://www.digitalocean.com/company/contact/

Jarland