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Configuring DNS for Your cPanel Domain

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Last Updated: June 25, 2015 10:17 AM

cPanel (both shared and on servers) lets you host a website and email for your domain names. To establish the connection between the domain name and your cPanel account, you need to change the domain name's DNS (What is DNS?).

  • For shared hosting customers with domains in the same account as their hosting, we configure these for you automatically.
  • For everyone else, you will need to configure this DNS wherever your domain name is registered. If it's through us, you can use our DNS manager (more info).

NOTE: DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to take effect across the Internet.

Mandatory Records

Record Type Host Points to
A (Host) @ Your account's IP address (Shared Hosting/Server)
CNAME mail @
CNAME www @
MX (Mail Exchanger) @ mail.[your domain name], for example mail.coolexample.com

NOTE: Use MX Priority 0

You must delete any other MX (Mail Exchanger) entries in the DNS zone file for your email to work. The MX entry listed above should be the only MX entry.

If you have your cPanel site set up on a subdomain (e.g. cpanel.coolexample.com), replace each instance of "@" with your subdomain and use the domain name including the subdomain in the MX record.

Optional Records

You do not need to add all of these records to your zone file, but doing so will make certain functions work, such as Autodiscovery through Outlook.

Record Type Host Points to/Value
A (Host) admin Your account's IP address (Shared Hosting/Server)
CNAME autoconfig @
CNAME autoconfig.admin @
CNAME autodiscover @
CNAME autodiscover.admin @
CNAME cpanel @
CNAME ftp @
CNAME webdisk @
CNAME webdisk.admin @
CNAME webmail @
CNAME whm @
CNAME www.admin @
TXT @ v=spf1 a mx ptr include:secureserver.net ~all

NOTE: This record applies only to cPanel shared hosting accounts.
TXT admin v=spf1 a mx ptr include:secureserver.net ~all

NOTE: This record applies only to cPanel shared hosting accounts.
Record Type Service Protocol Name Priority Weight Port Target
SRV _autodiscover _tcp @ 0 0 443 cpanelemaildiscovery.cpanel.net
SRV _autodiscover _tcp admin 0 0 443 cpanelemaildiscovery.cpanel.net

You can also remove the following DNS entries:

CNAME Records
email
imap
pop
smtp