I am a webmaster and the client has a domain name with Netfirms. I did up a new website for them, but I used NetHostSpace.com to host the new website. To point the domain name to the new website, I added an A-Record for the clients site. The A-Record was for www.clientsite.com, and I forwarded it to the IP address of the name server that was given to me by NetHostSpace when I joined up.

The website is forwarded fine. The problem is that I was forced to leave the MX-Records for Netfirms mail servers, because the client preffered using Netfirms Webmail and already set up the Outlook email clients in her company to use the Netfirms SMTP. I used asp.net for the new website and now it won't send emails. I used the SMTP server address Netfirms provided for the domain name since the MX-Records still point to their servers (smtp.clientsite.com). Oddly enough, when I go to NetHosSpace DNS settings, I see an MX-Record defined for www.clientsite.com which point to their servers (mail.clientsite.com).

When I try pinging smtp.clientsite.com (Netfirms), It times out. When i try to ping mail.clientsite.com (NetHostSpace), I get the server name was not found. Additionally, when I do a nslookup in DOS on the MX-Record of the domain name, i see that it is set to Netfirms.

Can anyone tell me why I cant send mail via Netfirm's SMTP server at smtp.clientsite.com? Also, is it possible to have a a domain name with the A-Records pointed to one webhost and the MX-Record pointed to a different one. Sorry if my questions are noobish, I just cannot understand the whole DNS concept.

Yes it is entirely possible and allowable to point your A-Rec at one server and your MX Rec at another server. That's why your admin tool gives you the ability to do this.

As to why it is not working, it could be any number of things but here are my thoughts:

1. It could be that the TTL (time to live) setting is too high and it may take 3 or 4 days for the propagation to complete. This happened to me one time. Most TTL's are set for about 6 hours but some webmasters set them much higher but I don't know why. It's just stupid to have such a high setting.

2. It is completely transparent as to which SMTP server you use - you have two to choose from - don't waste time trying to figure out why one doesn't work, switch the SMTP server to the new host - it should work - yes you'll have to re-configure their email clients but only one time.

3. My last comment is a question: why did you switch hosts? While you *can* split the hosting IP and the MX record, why do so at all? I'd keep my website and my mail servers on the same network (host). I say this especially since your client wants to keep their old host for webmail app reasons.

Let us know how you end up solving this problem.