Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!uokmax!munnari.oz.au!cs.mu.oz.au!kre
From: kre@cs.mu.oz.au (Robert Elz)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains
Subject: Re: No matching of * MX records?
Keywords: MX wildcards
Message-ID: <6044@munnari.oz.au>
Date: 18 Nov 90 17:55:57 GMT
References: <1990Nov16.232833.7684@ugle.unit.no>
Sender: news@cs.mu.oz.au
Lines: 31

In article <1990Nov16.232833.7684@ugle.unit.no>,
he@spurv.runit.sintef.no (Havard Eidnes) writes:
> *               IN      MX      10      snork.imf.unit.no.
> hufsa           IN      A       129.241.15.4

> Previously, when I looked up MX information for hufsa.imf.unit.no.,
> I would receive the information that snork.imf.unit.no. was a mail
> exchanger for hufsa.imf.unit.no. However, recently this seems to
> have stopped working, and I have to explicitly ask for the mail exchanger
> of '*.imf.unit.no' instead.

My guess would be that you recently added the A and HINFO lines for
hufsa ... the definition of the wildcard is tht it works ONLY for names
that are NOT otherwise present in the zone, ie: the * cannot match
hufsa because hufsa is there.   You need to add an explicit MX for
hufsa.

Its not just '*.imf...' that will match the wildcard, try looking
up 'dead-frogs.imf...' I think you'll find that one will find it as
well.

Wildcards really have just one important use, that's to handle
domains which are primarily not connected to the internet - that
is, all that exists is a single wildcard MX in the zone (plus NS
and SOA records, and maybe a few special cases).

In any other case, all they really do is cause mail for
spelling-mistake.domain to be forwarded to the MX host,
which is very rarely useful.   Avoid wildcards.

kre