Traditionally, to test the configuration of Postfix you had to install a full featured DNS server. This was due to the MX records mechanism. When you send a mail outside, the MTA (Mail Transfer Agent) sends a request to the DNS server responsible (the term normally used is authoritative) for the domain name specified in the recipient’s email address to get the MX records. These MX records give you the name of the servers handling the mails for the recipient’s domain. So, if you’ve got a domain called example.com, you need a way to define which servers in this domain are in charge of the mail delivery. The mail is sent to the mail server with the lowest value. If that failed, the mail is then sent to the one with the slightly higher value, etc.
For example, if you’ve got two servers managing mails for your domain, the DNS configuration is as follows:
example.com 86400 MX 10 mail.example.com
20 mail2.example.com
This DNS requirement makes Postfix configuration slightly more complicated because you need to be sure of your DNS configuration and it’s sometimes delicate in a lab environment.
However, there is a directive in Postfix called disable_dns_lookups that stops this behavior altogether. When set to yes, Postfix only relies on the local /etc/hosts file, which makes everything easier.
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