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How to obtain Internet Mail Exchanger records with the Nslookup.exe Utility

Article ID: 203204

Article Last Modified on 10/25/2007

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This article was previously published under Q203204

SUMMARY

When you troubleshoot Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) problems, you may want to obtain the Domain Name System (DNS) records for the SMTP domain in question. You can use the Nslookup.exe utility to collect this information.

MORE INFORMATION

Requirements

DNS must be configured properly on the computer running the Nslookup.exe utility. If DNS is not configured, an error message is displayed when the Nslookup.exe utility starts.

Steps to Use the Nslookup.exe Utility

  1. Open a command prompt.
  2. Type the following:

    nslookup

  3. Type the following:

    set q=mx

    This sets a filter to only collect Internet Mail Exchanger (MX) records and related information.
  4. Type the following

    domain_name.com

    where domain_name is the domain that you want to obtain the DNS records for, for example, microsoft.com or msn.com.
An output similar to the following is displayed:

Server: [157.178.72.30]
Address: 157.178.72.30

microsoft.com MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = mail1.microsoft.com
microsoft.com MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = mail2.microsoft.com
microsoft.com MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = mail3.microsoft.com
microsoft.com MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = mail4.microsoft.com
microsoft.com MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = mail5.microsoft.com
mail1.microsoft.com internet address = 131.107.3.125
mail2.microsoft.com internet address = 131.107.3.124
mail3.microsoft.com internet address = 131.107.3.123
mail4.microsoft.com internet address = 131.107.3.122
mail5.microsoft.com internet address = 131.107.3.121

Keywords: kbhowto kbtshoot kbnetwork kbsetup KB203204


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