Set MX records in the DNS Manager if using Gmail?

If you are using your registrar for DNS hosting, no DNS settings you put in the Linode DNS Manager will matter, regardless of the record type. If you are not using your registrar for DNS hosting, you will need to set up any records, including MX records, in the Linode DNS Manager.

If you're not sure which of these you're doing, run dig +trace yourdomainhere.com from your Linode. That'll show you where people are looking up your records from: if the buck stops with ns#.linode.com, you're using the Linode DNS Manager. If it stops at your registrar's nameservers, you're using theirs.

• Les

OK. My domain is still on DigitalOcean (I'm in the process of moving to Linode), and the dig +trace points to their servers. However, I don't see anything that looks like an MX record in the trace. It it safe to assume that I can set up my MX records on the Linode dashboard even if they are redundant of the registrar's?

Setting them up on the Linode DNS Manager will have no effect, because nothing will ask Linode's DNS servers about your domain.

Question: if GoDaddy provided my domain, and in the GoDaddy setting's I set the name servers to Linode's name servers, does that affect where I add MX Records? In other words, do I add my MX Records via Linode or GoDaddy?

Thanks,
Everette Moses

@spentecotech --

If you tell GoDaddy to forward all DNS requests regarding your domain to Linode then all DNS records need to be at Linode (this is exactly my situation).

-- sw

@stevewi

Thank you for the clarification! Enjoy your weekend

--Everette