SurgeMAIL setup...

[shawn.berg]

Just want to take a second to thank everyone for all their recent help!

My last issue is SurgeMAIL. I just downloaded it (as it was very much recommended) and I am very new to smtp servers. Everything has setup alright (or so it seems) but I can't send or receive email.

I searched here and found only a couple of off-topic results, so I need to ask a few questions here; please be gently as I normally give more than I take.....:

I attempted to set up SurgeMAIL with my free .TK address, (i.e....name@site.tk). Now, could someplease please explain "DNS" and "MX". Specifically what they are and what they do.

When I attempted to send and receive an email from SurgeMAIL, it didn't work, and in the log file it stated: ..."DNS lookup failed". I did a little research, and found some garble about asking Dot.TK to setup a DNS and MX?

Simple put, I'm getting into basics of webhosting and networking. Although a decent HTML/CSS, JavaScript and Perl programmer, I have always concentrated on these areas and hosted my sites from commercial hosting companies. Currently I run Abyss on my laptop with Perl 5.8.2 and Mail::Sendmail.pm installed. In order to run my Perl script (form to email) I needed a smtp server. Hence, I laid my hands on Surgemail so I could program my script using "localhost".

Anyway, any help and direction would be fine on how to configure this.

Sincerely,

Shawn.Berg

[iNaNimAtE]

First, the basics:

DNS, simply put, is the association with a domain name (yourname.com) to a numerical IP address (206.13.28.12). This association is essential for the internet to work. When someone sends you an email, say you@yourdomain.com, "yourdomain.com" [usually] gets associated with an IP address via an MX (mail exchange) record. DNS entries have multiple types: A (for HTTP), MX (for mail), CNAME (other uses), and some less common ones. Your IP must be associated with a domain in order for you to receive mail. Also, you must have ports 110 and 25 open on your router to allow traffic (sometimes you only need just 25 open, but keep 110 open just in case).

Dot TK is more of a URL Redirection service, so I don't know much about how their DNS works. My guess would be that it won't work, unless you specifically purchase an MX record from them. Normal TLD domains require DNS, so you would be better off using one of those.
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