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waleed_osama_23's avatar
waleed_osama_23
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
May 16, 2016

Is it possible to use a WideIP to load balance connections to Mail Server (MX Records)

A customer implementation requires load balancing incoming connections to their hosted websites, that works ok. But the problem is with the mail, is it possible to configure F5 to load balance DNS responses between 2 MX records? And if not, what is the best way to load balance incoming mail connections (SMTP) not Web Mail.

                        Thanks in advance
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  • cjunior's avatar
    cjunior
    Icon for Nacreous rankNacreous
    May 16, 2016

    The Big-IP v12.0.0 have this option to MX record type in WideIP.

    Prior to that, what I've been doing is to answer all IP addresses for A record referenced by MX in order to balance.

    Thus, reverse lookup will always match an IP address to the MX record when it queried.

    e.g.

    mydomain.com MX preference = 1, mail exchanger = mxlb.mydomain.com

mxlb.mydomain.com
Addresses: 200.X.X.150
             177.X.X.100

    I hope this help you.