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Creating MX Records

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Last Updated: October 1, 2008 11:31 AM

Your domain’s MX or Mail Record controls where email that is sent to your domain goes. Usually, there is no need to modify an MX record. However, it is occasionally necessary to update the record if you host a Web site with one network but you have email hosted somewhere else.

If MX0 has the value "mail.coolexample.com," this tells all email addressed to your domain to go to your domain’s mail server where you can pick it up.

You may have multiple MX records assigned to your domain. For example, you may assign MX10, MX20, and MX30 to a mail server. These numbers describe the priority in which the email servers are contacted when trying to deliver an email message. This is a fail-safe measure you can use in the event your default mail server is down. The alternate mail servers store your email messages until your default server is back online. This prevents loss of email during your main mail server’s downtime. This is called MX Priority. The lowest number MX record is the first one attempted for delivery.

To Create an MX Record

  1. Log in to your Account Manager.
  2. In the My Products section, click Domain Manager.
  3. Click the domain name for which you want to create an MX record.
  4. In the Total DNS Control section, click Total DNS Control and MX Records.
  5. Click Add New MX Record.
  6. Complete the following:
    Priority
    The priority with which you want to assign the mail server.
    Host Name
    The domain name for the MX record. You can enter @ to map the record directly to your domain, or enter the subdomain of your host name (for example, www, ftp, and so on).
    Enter Goes To Address
    The mail server's address.
    TTL
    The time increment for which the server should cache the information.
  7. Click OK.

NOTE: You cannot set up your domain name to use more than one mail provider at a time. If you have an email account through another email provider and change your MX record to point to our mail server, you will no longer have access to your email account. Verify that this is an action you want to take before making MX Record changes.