Changing the MX Records for Your Domain - General Instructions
MX (Mail Exchange) records tell the Internet what to do with emails sent to your domain. You can configure Directra to handle your email routing by changing the MX records for your domain.
If you are already using this domain to route email and/or provide mailboxes for your group members you will need to configure Directra before changing your domain's MX records. Learn more ...
To change the MX records for your domain:
- Go to the website of the company hosting your domain.
- Log in with your username (often this will be the domain name) and password associated with your domain.
- If you have more than one domain, make sure you have selected the correct domain to edit.
- Find the page where you can edit your MX record. Here are some hints on how to find this page:
- If the site has a Search function, search for MX record, then follow the instructions given.
- Look for something indicating "Domain Management", "DNS Management", "Email Management", or something similar.
- When you reach the correct page you may need to go to Advanced Settings to enable you to edit the entries. If necessary, click an "Edit" button to enable editing.
- Delete any existing MX entries. You might want to jot down the entries so you can follow the format used when performing the next step.
- Create the primary and secondary MX records for Directra, using the following information:
Record Type Host Name Address Priority TTL MX @ mx1.directra.com. 10 Maximum value allowed MX @ mx2.directra.com. 20 Maximum value allowed Not all of these values, e.g. hostname or TTL, may be available. If that is the case, don't worry about those values. However, at a minimum you should be able to enter the address and priority. Be sure to include the trailing period on the address.
The page displayed may enable you to alter settings other than MX records. Make sure you work with MX records only. The section may be headed "MX Records" but may also be called "Email Settings" or something similar.
That's all. Within an hour email to your domain will be handled by Directra.
- There are certain situations in which you may only be able to point to a single Directra mail server. For example, if you use a mailhop server to filter spam (i.e. you supply that server name, not the Directra server name, here), this server may only allow you to name a single server as the destination for your filtered email. In this case, do not use the mx1 or mx2 server names shown above. Instead, use the name mx.directra.com in your mailhop server. This name is always guaranteed to resolve to an operational server, even if one or the other of Directra's servers is down.
- You can also configure Directra to do two-stage email routing, where Directra gets the email first, routes the addresses it knows about, and then relays the rest to a pre-existing mail server. This is done by setting the catch-all address to the name of a mail server or to a (sub)domain name for which one or more mail servers are defined. See Using the Catch-All Address for details.
Related Topics
You can get specific instructions for changing MX record for these domain registrars: