How to configure email autoconfiguration for a domain?

Solution 1:

I am sorry I might be late to the party here. If you are still looking for a solution, I spent a weekend figuring out how to provide Auto Configuration (autodiscover what Outlook 2010 calls it) for most popular email clients including iOS.

I wrote it all down in a blog post here: http://moens.ch/2012/05/31/providing-email-client-autoconfiguration-information/ (also available via archive.org)

Outlook 2010 actually does a combination of DNS lookup and XML config. It first does a SRV lookup for _autodiscover._tcp.<yourdomain> and then does an xml POST request to your autodiscover url and expects an XML response. My post contains samples of the XML response and a link to the full autodiscover xml Response spec on MS technet.

In short: You can provide full autodiscover functionality to your users even without Exchange server.

Solution 2:

RFC 6186 describes how to use SRV records for e-mail services. Summary:

• SRV records like _submission._tcp SRV 0 1 587 mail.example.com. and _pop3, _pop3s, _imap, _imaps. (Last number is the port number.)
• When offering both IMAP and POP, use the first number to show which is preferred (lower is preferable).

I don't know which MUA's already implement this. Maybe KMail. Thunderbird not yet?

Solution 3:

So far as I know, the (Outlook) feature requires Exchange 2007 or later.