The MX record
MX stands for ‘Mail Exchange(r)’
“Why can I send email to schrof@cig.mot.com, if cig.mot.com isn’t an actual machine?”
cig.mot.com has MX records in the DNS:
cig.mot.com. in mx 20 relay2.cig.mot.com.
in mx 10 ilds01.cig.mot.com.
in mx 40 ilms01.cig.mot.com.
Format of an MX record:
[owner] [ttl] [class] MX <PREFERENCE> <HOST>
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- HOSTs with lower PREFERENCES are tried first when transporting email.