Separate Domain and Host - How to do Email?

Email / Domain Issues

[dkershner]

OK, without any specifics...I buy my domain from one service, and my hosting from another. My domain name registrar gives me 1 email account with 1gb space, my host gives me 10 or so to use with my web space. Is there a way I can use both? Or a way I can use the domain registrar for email and the host for the website? I am trying the latter currently, but am unable to recieve any emails...I can get you some DNS details if necessary...

TIA
DK

[lorax]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

Yes you can. What you need to do is change the MX record on the server where the DN registrar points to. Set the MX record to point to the mail server that you want to have handle your mail. The target mail server must have a DNS entry for the target DN or mail will not get routed. Most likely you'll have at least 2 MX records. They'll looks something like this:

10 mx1.somehostdn.com.
20 mx2.somehostdn.com.
30 mx3.somehostdn.com.

[dkershner]

My domain name service will only let me change the mx server if I use their name server, which will likely not allow me to show my website. I was just trying to use all of the space I could (want to get the most for my money) but I think using my host for both email and www should be perfectly fine. Thanks for your help!

[mack]

This shouldn't pose any real problems. The MX entry can point to a different IP address from your main site. It is a very different entry. You can quite realisticaly use one server for www and another for your mail server whils using the same dns provider.

Mack.