Email Guide/Offsite Email

From Site5Wiki

Sometimes you may want to use another server to handle the email for the domain you have hosted with your Site5 account. You can do this using the "Manage DNS Zone Files" feature in your SiteAdmin Control Panel (Under "Manage My Domains" in the menu to the left).

Open up the DNS Zone Editor under Manage My Domains -> DNS Zone Files. Once you have the Zone Editor up, select the DNS zone file you want to edit (i.e. which domain you want to change). You will see the "MX record" listed. It is this entry that tells other mail servers where to send mail.

The entry should read something like the following:

1st Field	2nd Field	3rd Field	4th Field	5th Field	6th Field
@		IN	MX	10	youdomainname.com.

The first field is a "short-hand" for your domain name. The second field is blank. The third and fourth specify that this line is the MX record. The fifth field is the "priority" of the MX record. MX records are processed in ascending order of the priority: record "10" is processed before record "20" and so on. The sixth and last field is the server name to send email to.

To change where your email is sent, change the last field to the name of the server you want to send the email to. If you want your email to go to "offsite.mailserver.com", change the entry to:

@

IN

MX

10

offsite.mailserver.com.

Please note the "period" at the end of "offsite.mailserver.com" in the fifth field. Do not forget the period. If you do not, the DNS server will add you domain to the contents of the fifth field.

Click on "Submit zone changes" button to save your changes. Your email will now be directed to the off-site mailserver.

PLEASE NOTE: Site5 is not responsible for off-site mail servers. If you have problems with your off-site mail server, you will need to contact your personal system administrator or the company that supports the server.

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