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here is my current setup of my domain name:

Record Type Record Host Record Answer TTL Priority Create Date
A   *.domain.com    8.6.19.68 300                2010-09-01 17:21:13
CNAME   domain.com  domain.ning.com 300     2010-09-03 11:54:00
CNAME   www.domain.com  domain.ning.com 300     2010-09-01 17:21:23

As you can see i already have my domain connecting to a social network on ning.com and i need to keep it there. This approach with CNAME is the only way Ning.com allow. However i still want the emails to be at the Webmail on my VPS (because ning doesnt offer webmail). Is this possible? If so, how? What do i need to add?

Thanks for your time

Jonathan
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2 Answers2

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You do not need to do anything else:

  1. The mail server for your domain is specified by the MX record, which you have not listed in the question. [Edit: If you have no MX record, your domain's mail will be delivered to the address specified in the A record for domain.com.] As long as you have an MX record for domain.com and you do not change it, your mail delivery will not be affected.
  2. Because they are separate from your MX records, the CNAME records pointing to domain.ning.com will not change where your mail is delivered.
  3. Of course, if there is an address that you normally use to retreive your mail (e.g. webmail.domain.com), you will need to make sure that this address continues to resolve to its original location.
Skyhawk
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  • Thanks. I dont have a mx record, and parasusninos.com is not my website. 8.6.19.68 is ning.com's ip. Do you know how i can find out what my VPS mail server address is? – Jonathan Sep 05 '10 at 19:10
  • Hi Jonny: if you can receive mail, then you definitely have an MX record! Try "dig domain.com mx" at any kind of a Unix command line (Linux, Mac, Solaris, whatever) and you will see where your mail is delivered. Of course, if your MX record points to "domain.com", then you will need to create an A record for "mail.domain.com" and change your MX record to "mail.domain.com" so that you can redirect "domain.com" to Ning without breaking anything. – Skyhawk Sep 06 '10 at 19:17
  • It is possible to receive mail without having an MX record - the mail will be delivered (if possible) directly to the host named in the e-mail address. – gbroiles Sep 06 '10 at 21:24
  • I stand corrected, per [RFC 5321](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5321). I didn't realize that there was a provision for falling back to A records in the absence of MX records. – Skyhawk Sep 07 '10 at 04:03
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You will need to log into the control panel at your registrar (the people you paid to create domain.com) and set up MX records. The MX records tell the rest of the world that your webmail provider is the correct destination for inbound e-mail for your host/domain.

You may also want/need to set up a new A or CNAME record such as "webmail.domain.com" so that it's easy for you and your users to connect to the webmail service.

It's a little unusual for a VPS provider to offer webmail service - are you sure they have agreed to do this for you? If so, they should have given you explicit directions about how to configure your DNS records; the contents of the records are specific to the webmail provider and aren't something you can be reasonably expected to know on your own.

For comparison, here are some instructions for setting up Google Apps webmail.

gbroiles
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