My email was/is hosted with ionos formally 1and1 and after transferring my domain to Cloudflare I was unable to send outbound emails using the suggested Cloudflare DNS record.
What steps have you taken to resolve the issue?
I’ve changed the Name field in the DNS MX records relating to 1and1 from “mail” to “allseasonsuk.com” in order to get outbound email working after the domain transfer but had to disable Email routing to achieve this and I’m now unable to reenable it with the current DNS configuration. I’ve also added additional TXT records, either at the request of the external email host(Ionos formally 1and1) or as a result of running a Cloudflare wizard.
I’m looking for advice on optimizing my DNS record so as to more fully use Cloudflare’s services as I believe the external email host(Ionos formally 1and1) is now sending my outbound email directly and not Cloudflare on its behalf. I’d also like to be able to use Cloudflare’s Email Routing functionality again.
I’ve updated the DNS records as per your comments above and have enabled Email Routing again which also made changes to the DNS record, which all look like positive changes. The DNS config now looks like(See Attached image):
The suggested Clouldflare DNS record was the one in force when the domain transfer completed. With regard to changing the MX records unlocking and disabling the email routing was the only way to update the MX Records. The change suggested came from Ionos support.
Please explain what issues leaving email routing enabled will have because as far as I can see it only affects inbound email traffic. Also please explain what impact turning email routing off will have on the email security regarding SPF, DMARC & DKIM.
I’m new to all of this so please be gentle with me and explain where you can why we are making the changes.
That’s correct. Do you not intend to use Ionos for inbound email? The issue is that you can’t use Ionos for inbound emails if you have Email Routing activated.
Email Routing has nothing to do with those.
Email routing is a forwarding service that accepts emails and forwards them to another email address you have, like a gmail address.
I was under the impression that Cloudflare was a ‘man in the middle’ so to speak brokering both inbound and outbound emails from my chosen external host(Ionos) as well as shielding the host and performing traffic analysis(ie Proxied). Thus I now deduce that email traffic is not of a suitable type to be proxied(ie not HTTP or HTTPS). Is the above correct?
Yes I do. Would have been more happy if Cloudflare was the man in the middle for all my custom domain email traffic but if that isn’t possible I’ll settle for standard DNS routing. Please comment on the changes that I need to make, if I can set up my ionos mailboxes via a Cloudflare(Man in the Middle) proxy.
I was interested in the “catch all” routing functionality of Cloudflare Email Routing. So that any mail destined for domain mailboxes not defined/hosted on the Ionos server would be routed to one mailbox that was, in this case: [email protected]. Would using the Cloudflare Email Routing “catch all” functionality in this way cause a problem?
No, the Cloudflare proxy exclusively handles inbound HTTP(S) traffic.
There are options where Cloudflare also handles other inbound traffic (Spectrum Enterprise), but those start from several thousand dollars a month or so from what I’ve heard.
You need to disable Email Routing. After that, check that your original SPF record (in your 1st screenshot) is created again.
Yes, it would cause the problem that your Ionos mail would no longer work. You can’t have both.
Sry, I misread what you wrote there. I thought you had changed the content field to your domain, not the name field. The name field should be your domain, you are correct.
