Pointing an MX record to a 3rd party mail server

The tutorial says

> To route email to a third-party email service, create MX records that associate your mail server (for example, mail.example.org) with a hostname provided by the third-party service.

Where would one put this hostname in the record? All I see is a field for a subdomain in the form.

3 Replies

Anyone? Do I just put the mail server address in the subdomain field? Something else?

To be clear, I want to point my mail.example.com MX record to Google's mail server

I think your quote is somewhat misleading. Unless you are wanting to handle mail sent to user@mail.example.com, you probably don't want an MX record for mail.example.com. In a self-hosted setup you might have an MX for example.com that points to mail.example.com, but for mail to user@example.com you would want an MX for example.com.

The MX record should contain the hostname (not an IP address) of the mail server that handles the mail. You haven't said what DNS service you are using, so you are on your own as to how to make the actual entries. In the linode DNS manager you would create an MX record and put the name of the mail server (provided by Google in your case) under "Mail Server", and leave the Subdomain blank unless you really are trying to direct mail for a subdomain.

Reply

Please enter an answer
Tips:

You can mention users to notify them: @username

You can use Markdown to format your question. For more examples see the Markdown Cheatsheet.

> I’m a blockquote.

I’m a blockquote.

[I'm a link] (https://www.google.com)

I'm a link

**I am bold** I am bold

*I am italicized* I am italicized

Community Code of Conduct