Configuring DNS to resolve one host for email (IMAP) and another for web/FTP/etc

Question

Not sure if this goes here or on serverfault, but here it goes. I have an account with Fastmail where I host my email. So my domain (simulplex.net) currently resolves to that, including WWW as well (they have that option). The domain is registered with godaddy, and the name servers there are the Fastmail ones.

Now, I want to host www.simulplex.net on Arvixe but I've never done separate DNS resolution (if that's the term); I'd like to host a website with them but keep my email with FastMail. I was wondering if that's more easily accomplished through godaddy, or assuming a standard DNS configuration screen, how would I forward A record queries to Arxive and MX queries to Fastmail.

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can't forward queries like that – you will need to configure the records on your domain directly, setting the A records to Arvixe's IP addresses (given by Arvixe) and the MX records to Fastmail.fm's mail servers. The configuration is more-or-less the same regardless of where your domain is hosted.

Since your domain is currently hosted on Fastmail.fm's DNS servers, you can change the A records using the Fastmail.fm domain management interface (Options → Custom DNS or Manage → Custom DNS) and keep the MX records with their current values. See the domain management & setup page on Fastmail.fm.

I have never used their DNS management interface, but the end result should look similar to this:

simulplex.net.              MX      10 in1-smtp.messagingengine.com.
simulplex.net.              MX      20 in2-smtp.messagingengine.com.
simulplex.net.              A       1.2.3.4
simulplex.net.              A       2.3.4.5

www.simulplex.net.          A       1.2.3.4
www.simulplex.net.          A       2.3.4.5

(Since Arvixe's support pages do not mention their web servers' addresses anywhere, I used 1.2.3.4 and 2.3.4.5 as examples. The mail servers of Fastmail.fm are real and were taken from this page.)

Note that simulplex.net. and www.simulplex.net. are independent in terms of DNS records. For a website, you will probably want to add identical A records to both domains. (However, for mail, MX records on www.simulplex.net. usually are not necessary.)

Answer 2

If you want to send an e-mail to support [@] arvixe.com with your Arvixe user name we will be able to provide you the IP addresses for your server for the A records.

Noah @ Arvixe