Mail server DNS records - setup and configuration explained

[@anubhavthakur8300]

This guy clear all my doubts about mail server records...I have read tons of blogs and watch many videos about mail servers and mail server records but they were all just waste of time. I have never commented on any youtube videos till then, but this man you made me do so. Thanks a lot for this valuable information.

[@christianlempa]

Thank you so much, it makes me happy to see it helps so many people 😁

[@RzVa317]

@@christianlempa I second his comment. Thank you for your great explanation and awesome videos!

[@intelligentrelax1005]

@@christianlempa Thank You Very Much

[@jonathandeleon3991]

Christian, thank you so much for making this video. I’m setting up a subdomain for a client for email marketing, and this cleared up so many questions for me. I’ve skimmed a ton of blog posts and guides, but your video addressed all my questions quickly and clearly. I watch all your other videos for self-hosting projects too. Keep it up! 🙏

[@hisatnam]

Strange how this video is underrated? The best video on Records. I am starting learning all about mail servers and found such a great info in this video. Thanks a Ton!

[@christianlempa]

Haha, I would love to see a video like this pop up ;) Thank you!

[@chriscorneliusclaassen5995]

This is clearly the best Mail tutorial i have ever seen keep up the good work mate i have been trying to understand a lot of this and you cleared all my questions in one tutorial

[@RayshenOmega]

dude i been searching all over and you just made all this so simple TY so much.

[@christianlempa]

Thanks! :)

[@craigsolow9003]

I could write so much here, but simplicity is best when I say: "Dude, you ROCK"!

[@christianlempa]

Thank you so much 🤣👍

[@JollyOllyBay]

This video was sooooo helpful, I was able to understand now the basic of email security and how to set it up on my environment (VPS hosted on ServerCheap, PLESK as server manager with BIND service disabled, Cloudflare as DNS management, and multiple domains for each customer running on 1 ipv4 address) Great tools and tips too, cheat sheet also is very helpful.

[@christianlempa]

Thank you ;) Great it was helpful!

[@ThomasTomchak]

I have read so many posts and watched so many videos, but this is the ONLY ONE that got me over that hump of getting the details correct. I even learned about the SRV records which I will totally utilize now that I finally have everything else working. I was close to just throwing in the towel and buying a helm server (still a great deal) when I found your video. Thank you for sharing your intellect and ability to teach something technical without being overly technical. And your idea of creating a cheat sheet but keeping the video simple was brilliant. THANK YOU MAN!

[@christianlempa]

Thanks you so much! It really makes me happy to read such a comment :)

[@Nyemaster]

Christian - Your talent and skills are much appreciated. Thanks for the time explaining the technology.

[@simoncarrascal7147]

Wow man such an amazing video, I watched so many videos trying to understand this topic but none of them were really useful like this video, thanks a lot

[@christianlempa]

Thank you so much :)

[@chrisschrumm6467]

Awesome video!!!!! Setting up some corporate e-mail servers and so needed this information.

[@christianlempa]

thank you! glad it helped you :)

[@elektroblock8122]

danke danke danke danke VIELEN DANK

[@christianlempa]

Sehr gerne ;)

[@tossnicho838]

Thank you,your clip helped me to sort my mail issue

[@simpelmic]

vielen dank. vielen dank. vieleeen dank. you saved me so much hirnschmalz! thaaaankssss tooooo youuuuuuu

[@christianlempa]

Sehr gerne :) freut mich dass es geholfen hat

[@peterpekny_goo]

Nice video :) thank you for explanation of all those DNS spooky stuff .. i just doing mail server and it is very helpfull .. thank you once again

[@srgb88]

Awesome video. Excellent info. Keep up the good work. Thank you.

[@raj.svc.google911]

PLEASE PLEASE make more videos explaining further details of mail server DNS records, mail server security / protection / filtering, and setting up for mail server high-availability. Thank you!

[@singh.karanbir]

This was really helpful, clear and to the point

[@christianlempa]

Thank you!

[@arthill2310]

well done, very helpful. I found this while looking for information on setting up DNS while using a spam filter service.

[@christianlempa]

Glad it was helpful!

[@انواعالموسيقى-د6ل]

Thank you very much, I configured all my mail records.

[@neevot]

Oh finally you did the video! :) Great!

[@MichaelSharpTechniSmart]

Brilliant tutorial. Finally someone explains the mysteries of mail in this age of bad actors.

[@christianlempa]

Thank you so much! :)

[@jackdoesengineering2309]

Great job - very nicely presented and good information - thanks!

[@christianlempa]

Thank you mate

[@adooken1019]

Amazing 👏 cleared most of my doubts thank you so very much. Keep it up please !

[@christianlempa]

Thank you so much! :)

[@Emmpeace]

Wow dude ! Thanks for sharing these valuable skills This is very right to the point

[@christianlempa]

Glad it was helpful!

[@berk473]

Super hilfreiches Video, danke dir!👌🏽

[@christianlempa]

Freut mich sehr!

[@tarose71]

@ about 5:30 you say the RDNS/PTR record needs to be set up on the server where you have hosted your public IP address ... so by this, do you mean to say that IF you are hosting your mail server on a server owned by someone else ("where you have hosted your public IP address"), this is where you would put it, BUT IF you were hosting your own mail server on your own home network (eg: using QNAP NAS virtual machine or container), then the RDNS/PTR record for reverse DNS lookup, would be on that machine? Could you please clarify this?

[@christianlempa]

If you're running the mail server On-Prem you would need to ask your ISP.

[@allisonmachado]

Amazing video man!

[@christianlempa]

Thank you so much :)

[@PoeLemic]

TDL's mail servers videos are like a DRUG to me, because I can get ADDICTED to them. I will watch every single one, re-watch them, and then do each thing that TDL says.

[@celestestone]

THIS IS AMAZING! Thank you!

[@christianlempa]

Thank you too!

[@catraaaw]

Useful and educational, thanks!

[@christianlempa]

Thanks man ☺️

[@rpsmith]

Excellent video! Thanks!

[@christianlempa]

Thanks

[@LeoAugustRocks]

A little technical, but helpful. Thanks!

[@jonathanl2757]

Would love to see a multidomain setup

[@darave105]

"Should be added on the provider where we have hosted the public ip address of our server", Can someone help me find this? I am using outlook and my DNS provider is Namecheap

[@bhagyarajmallampalli8751]

I have IONOS DNS, Cloudshare DNS and Plesk DNS, do I need to add all the mail records in these 3 DNS? one more question is where can I find rDNS in Plesk DNS? I am not able to find it out. Thanks so much for the help and support!!

[@bhavyang]

about autodiscovery configuration, could you please share details in document ? so, we would able to configure it correctly

[@dayumnson9769]

okay im stupid, finally have found the docu : D still great content

[@christianlempa]

Haha don't worry ;) thanks man

[@dayumnson9769]

Wow dude. This was SO helpful!! Thanks a lot man! Could you tell me how you did learn to set all this up? I checked mailcow but did not find a solid guide. Anyway big thanks. Keep it up!

[@sebastianmauricio775]

Thanks for the info. Do you have an updated link to your cheatsheet in github?

[@ehsanelahi]

Very Informative 👍

[@christianlempa]

Thanks 😆

[@SolarPV.]

Hi Christian, What happened to your cheat sheets ? and what do/did you think of Netcup ? do you have a new favourite.

[@digitalartee]

Great video! Thanks.

[@christianlempa]

Thank you 😊

[@josuedjondo7401]

absolutly clear !!!!!

[@christianlempa]

thanks mate!

[@ForrestRhoads]

Gut gemacht! Vielen Dank.

[@christianlempa]

Danke :)

[@JasonHawkesAerialPhototgraphy]

Hi Christian, thanks for your video. Ive been through all my DNS, DKIM authentication settings etc still some of my emails end who knows where, not where they should be :). Only setting I can see thats not sorted is Reverse DNS does not match SMTP Banner. If this does not go on my DNS records, where should I go ?

[@PoeLemic]

Had me laughing, TDL ... Yeah, I was chuckling ... 6:14 ... Yeah, that's how it always is. It should be "SIMPLE", but hell no. Nothing is simple in this Day and Age ...

[@fleetc]

So much information packed into one video. Very well done, congratulations. Out of curiosity, does Thunderbird actually works with the SRV records? I have mine setup but it does not and I could not find any info on what clients have actually implemented this standard. Very little info out there on this feature, which should have been adopted by all email clients by now. Sadly not.

[@kcclemo]

In regards to the rDNS record: What if my hosting provider is me? If I'm running my own Ubuntu server behind a home router how would I account for this?

[@cleanwater2373]

Are the DNS providers and the SMTP providers the same entity? For example, when buying an email domain on godaddy.

[@khalidalbahi9201]

Thank you so much for helping, i have done all the steps you mentioned, but unfortunately the mails are still arriving to “junk” folder in outlook. AnyHelp please?

[@johanhattingh3724]

I did everything mentioned in this video but sending from my email to someone else doesn't work recieving works so how do I fix the sending part??

[@adriellevy2207]

Need info about "DANE" DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities

[@jesus.moreno]

In Cheat-Sheet doesnot show the proxy status ... in cloudflare what proxy status should I choose? (proxied or DNS Only ???

[@glen.campbell]

Great video. If my domain is through godaddy and on a wordpress hosting. Can i do the changes as you suggest to get the mail setup instead of paying them for each email as they suggest ? Thanks for your time

[@harleyspeedthrust4013]

Yes you can, you would still need to set up a mail server somewhere but once you do that you can configure your DNS records like in the video to point to that mail server

[@Ajithk-m5o]

i have some doubts in send mail to applerelay mail ids my smtp works when i send the android users but its not working for relays i have done some research i have to change dns or is there other way there?

[@michaelgee64]

Ok so I am a newbie and have what is probably a pretty stupid question. I am trying out Moosend to deliver some html designed cold emails. During the setup it requires that I change update my DNS record for SPF and DKIM (as all mail senders do) What I cant find anywhere is wether or not I need to repeat this process for every email associated with my domain or just the domain itself. For example, is it necessary to set up info@mydomain , sales@mydomain , support@mydomain as well?

[@cmfinancialservices8667]

Hey dude! Nice Videos it really clear basic concepts for a noob such as me. One question..I have just setup postal server in my physical extra server, i have static ip and pointed my domain to this server, I can access server from domain name too, but spf and dkim record are not still updated yet. I have updated them as required in DNS, do you know how mucch time will they take to take effect? Thanks Buddy!

[@Tortuga89R]

My Godaddy DNS Management for the email domain I want to work on has 1 A-record that I cannot change and it's bound to an IP address.

[@jacktheknifescyzor8896]

OK, that was the easiest one example but when I have for an example IMAP server on different IP than SMP server - which should to go to the MX record and which to the A record?

[@alikhatab1009]

Hi, I am trying to setup mailcow next to laravel project running on Apache on digital ocean CentOS droplet but I had ports error and when I change the mailcow ports it’s not working and can’t add the dns record as mail.mydomain while I use the A record for the laravel project

[@nanotechnicianhq]

Someone said I should add v=spf1 +mx +a +ip4:(ip address of server) ~all. What would +mx & +a do? I guess its MX record and A record bundled than separate records?

[@DonDiablo_US]

Great video. I have a question. My website is hosted with IONOS and my registrar is GoDaddy. IONOS forced me to change my name server on GoDaddy. When I went to to change my Records on GoDaddy it was impossible. However their Support Team told me in order to change records I must change my nameservers to GoDaddy. When I change it to GoDaddy, IONOS told me I have to change it back. Can you help?

[@sanmol26]

Hi, I still have not understood RDNS and how to fix it? How do I get to know who is my hosting provider and what is my public IP?

[@GamerEmerald7200]

Can we add an AAAA record for our mail server? I'm asking because A is similar to AAAA.

[@rusticsoulproductions]

Hey Christian, great woek bro, just a quick quesrion. Since im going to host my mail server for a test using my public ip, which im reluctant to do so. Can i point it to my tailscale ip? If yes, will it cause problems wigb rDNS?

[@christianlempa]

Hey thanks for your kind words! Yes, you can point your mail server to your Tailscale IP, and it should work fine for testing. Just keep in mind that using Tailscale might complicate things with rDNS, so you might want to check that out. Good luck with your setup!

[@Madeyaaalook]

good job! unfortunately - i get Invalid syntax found - what did i wrong?

[@JayPatel-wn7hs]

Hello.... I was watch both of video installation and this DNS. This helpful. Everything work fine. But i was add my second domin in mailcow its also worked but my mail dropped in spam mail.what i do?

[@Someone-u7j]

The cheat sheet is not there anymore. It would be awesome to add the cheat sheet and edit it's link. I would appreciate it. Thank you

[@Ahodoll]

Thank you very much!

[@christianlempa]

You're welcome!

[@cr22rc]

Hi Christian, point of confusion. I assume that the email that would have to be used would be somename at mail.dig... as the A record you added. If so, I already have both hosting and email using same domain. I'd rather not change either -- really a non start for me :( Is it possible for me to move the email to another provider while retaining the web hosting with out changing my email address at all?

[@Dainis_M]

Hi, what about mailcow reverse proxy setup? Could you please make a video about that topic?

[@raj.svc.google911]

The link doesn't work. The folder 'networking' doesn't seem to exist anymore in the Github repo.

[@nurbsfactor9947]

I was wondering if you can explain how to handle DKIM DMARC and SPF for subdomains that are running as separate mail servers? Do they need their own DMARC, DKIM, and SPF records for each subdomain?

[@christianlempa]

Yeah you need to setup them separately

[@MarsTheProgrammer]

digital ocean where my domain is doesn't have rdns or ptr... so where would i put the RDNS?

[@christianlempa]

Digitalocean automatically configures a PTR based on the hostname you set in the droplet. So always set a valid FQDN as a droplet hostname and you should be fine. Also make sure you contact Digitalocean to open the port 25 to your account, by default it's blocked... took me 2 hours to find out :D

[@RandyGrace]

How do you set an rDNS record if you're running the email server (e.g. hMailhserver) on your own home computer (Windows 10)?

[@christianlempa]

You need to talk to your ISP or configure it on your router if possible

[@picklerism]

VERY useful!!!!

[@christianlempa]

Glad you think so!

[@Seeratbd]

Hi Chris, I have been configuring DNS records for mail server setup. I found that the length of the vlaue of smtp2 is too big and the DNS zone couldnt take the full value. The provider suggested me to split the value, do you have idea how to split the records?

[@christianlempa]

Haven't heard about that, maybe just give your provider a chat

[@AMoktar]

Thanks bro ❤

[@christianlempa]

Welcome 😊

[@eatshrots]

to set up reverse DNS, I contacted my ISP - Verizon FIOS, and they were seeing I have a 3rd party router, and I said I don't believe my wifi router has anything to do with reverse DNS. They said "we cannot do it on our end is because our IP address is set on dynamic IP address if theres an option to do it on our end it will still go back to the same default dynamic IP address." So apparently I need a static IP address and that requires me to pay for a business account. Is this correct? I was able to add the A and MX records in GoDaddy and I have a Synology server, but reverse DNS has stumped me now. Any help is appreciated!

[@harleyspeedthrust4013]

Yes that sounds about right. Dynamic IPs are reassigned, so your PTR record will be invalid when your IP is reassigned. I would also recommend not running a mail server at home because this is one of the many problems you'll face. If you haven't yet, you'll also find that your ISP blocks incoming and outgoing connections to port 25, so none of your emails will even make it to any other mail server and vice versa. The best thing to do is to just shell out for hosting and set up your mail server on a remote machine with a business class connection and no port restrictions (or port restrictions that can easily be lifted).

[@Nyemaster]

Christian, The RDNS is automatically created now a days on GoDaddy, right?

[@sachinc6885]

Hi, I had setup godaddy domain to AWS route53 some days back, works fine and now am try to setup professional email from godaddy but getting error not able to verify. To verify domain settings, tried with digwebiteface tool hence found that latest records are not listing like TXT, MX, CNAME. please help me to understand this. Thanks

[@christianlempa]

Check if you've set the correct nameservers in Godaddy.

[@AllahomAnsorGaza]

Hello Chris i just finish everything and everyting working fine with SSL but when i send email to gmail its go to spam folder why thats happen i added all records you mention in video

[@christianlempa]

Hi, I would recommend checking with google. Maybe your IP reputation is bad. This can happen if it's not a static IP, but dynamic or due to previous abuse.

[@n4870s]

I has MX records setup wrong for few months and didn't get any emails during that time. Now i fixed them and i get new emails, but is it possible to recover mails during the past months or are they lost?

[@christianlempa]

No, some mail servers might retry to send you the emails, but if that's longer than a few days... probably not. However, the Sender should have received an "undeliverable" response and might try to contact you again.

[@fossdom5568]

Do we need to open any ports on the router ? In order to send/rcv

[@christianlempa]

If your mail server is behind a router you probably need to forward the SMTP port 25 and the web ports 80, 443 and IMAP/POP if you need to connect mail clients.

[@eddie2378]

Thanks mate I enjoy the way you simply complex topics. I have a question. Let's imagine, you are hosting 3 different websites under the same IP address. How would you setup rDNS for email? Those 3 domain names could belong to different customers.

[@christianlempa]

Thank you, man 😉! If you have only one IP address, you can only set 1 rDNS name. You could choose one domain as the main domain for the mail server and point all MX records of the other domains to that mail server DNS, that's how I do it in my setup. If these domains are for different customers, you could simply use your company domain as a mail server (that's how ISPs, Office365, etc. do it). Or get more IP addresses from your hoster.

[@ninja2807]

Thanks Man this was a great video and very well explained. One thing I couldn't really understand was the rDNS part, well I understand you are hosting your mail server on the cloud. However, if I am self hosting this mail server (at home) where this rDNS record must be configured?

[@christianlempa]

Yea that's definately something you need! If you don't have a static IP address at home, that's going to be a challenge though.

[@harleyspeedthrust4013]

You need to ask your ISP to create the PTR record for you, but in order to do that you need to get a static IP. And they probably won't do it for you because ISPs generally don't want people hosting mail servers on a residential connection. Although like TDL said hosting a mail server at home is probably not going to work. If you haven't run into this already, you'll probably find that your ISP blocks incoming and outgoing connections to port 25, which is the standard port that all mail servers use to talk to one another (and you can't change this, not even with a SRV record). Having a dynamic IP is its own big issue - even if you get the mail server working, you'll be chugging along and then one day it just breaks because your IP changed. If you do insist on hosting it at home though you can use services like dnsexit to relay incoming or outgoing mail for you to different ports. For example you can configure your mail server to send outgoing mail to a relay server on port 24, which may not be blocked, and the relay server will send the mail for you. Of course you'll probably have to pay for something like this if you do use it and if you're going to pay then why not shell out for hosting?

[@rccmhalfar]

hi is the cheat sheet still available?

[@ddrci88]

Can you make a tutorial for mail In a server for multiple domain ? And I want to use route 53 dns and only use a record to my email server I couldn’t figure out

[@christianlempa]

You can host multiple domains very easily. You can create an MX for every domain which points to your FQDN of your Mailserver.

[@ddrci88]

@@christianlempa thanks

[@horsesunplugged932]

This is a great video, but will this prevent my emailing platform from sending emails? (Like MailChimp, or ConstantContact)

[@christianlempa]

Well, if you configure it right, it shouldn't

[@AllahomAnsorGaza]

Hello Chris i setup everything like you mention and its works perfect with gmail but when i try to send message to hotmail its rejected do you know why ?

[@christianlempa]

Maybe your IP address was blacklisted from Microsofts servers. I would create a support ticket, and ask the guys if your IP is on a blacklist and how to remove it.

[@AllahomAnsorGaza]

@@christianlempa yes please how i can send you the ip

[@warescaleio]

I followed all of the steps in the video, but when i test it with a mail tester it gives really bad results. For example "A DMARC policy allows a sender to indicate that their emails are protected by SPF and/or DKIM, and give instruction if neither of those authentication methods passes. Please be sure you have a DKIM and SPF set before using DMARC."

[@andrewkamoha4666]

Any special reason for the Professor Xavier look?

[@kornelijekovac9793]

2:50 Shouldn't that be a CNAME record?

[@Emmpeace]

CNAME is useful when you have more than one mail servers

[@filippxx]

The guys managing email at my company acted like DKIM, DMARC and everything else regarding mail security was top secret stuff. Not anymore :)

[@christianlempa]

Haha that's great, thank you! :)

[@JunayedKader]

Can I add this keys in bind DNS in centos 8 ?? If we can, please tell how.

[@christianlempa]

Should be possible, all DNS records are standardized. But I don't have any experience with that with bind, sorry.

[@Kossmok]

Why have you deleted the cheat sheet?

[@michaelreis4157]

Muito obrigado por compartilhar.

[@BecomeAWebDev]

very good

[@christianlempa]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@PoeLemic]

Also, I see you are using Godaddy (2:50) like I am for my domain. But, what Provider are you using to host your Mail Server? Maybe you could make a video about that also? And, maybe say why you picked them, their features, etc. Lot of people say positive things about Digital-Ocean, so I am thinking about setting up my Linux Server there and doing Docker (like you did) for Mailcow there. But, I'd be curious where you chose and why.

[@PoeLemic]

Oh, okay, I see it is some German company (5:35). Ignore what I've said. That's not important, because Digital-Ocean is something that I can use.

[@christianlempa]

I'm currently using a german hosting provider called netcup basically because they offer good hardware very cheap. But I plan to migrate to DigitalOcean (I already have a referral code) and also do a video about it and about cloud in general.

[@PoeLemic]

@@christianlempa Yeah, try to get those giveaway codes that they give, and I'd join up using your code. Used to, they'd give people (like $100 bucks or $50 bucks) for the first month. Now, I am not sure how much they give, but I'd love to setup a small 1-core server (or the $10 buck one) and try this stuff. Someone said that the $5 bucks might not be enough for stuff (because of the RAM) -- if you said that, I'm sorry but don't remember. I watch so many of these videos, as I become more comfortable with Linux (having a strong Windows background) ... It's intimidating at first, but people like you (and Chris Titus) make me know building Linux skills is easier now and I shouldn't fear it.

[@PoeLemic]

@@christianlempa Honestly, I tried to get into Linux years ago, but there were a lot of Bullies and Dicks in the Linux Community. Or, that's how it felt to me. It was toxic, and I couldn't get shit up & running. Yeah, I could do the install. But, I had some hardware that wasn't recognized, so everyone told me just to go get the source code, compile it, and use it. And, I tried, having some GCC experience, but damned, even the straight source code that I got wouldn't compile without problems. So, I never got my network card for that computer up & running. So, I just gave up. Yet, nowadays, the Linux Community is more welcoming. And, now, I know that I could come over and succeed. Again, thanks for what you do. You are one of the new wave of individuals helping many to move away from Windows and into the Linux world.

[@christianlempa]

@@PoeLemic A code is already in the description, it gets you 100$ for 60 days ;)