Issues with DNS and email

DNS & Network
#1

I use a2Hosting for my web hosting an email. And I use Cloudflare through my CPanel.

I’ve been having problems with my email not being delivered so I checked out the “Email Deliverability” on my account and it gives me this message on my account.

“This system does not control DNS for the “xxxxxxxx” domain. Contact the person responsible for the ‘xxxxxxx’ and ‘xxxxxxx’ nameservers and request that they update their records.”

It has been a while since I set the Cloudflare service up, and I’m not exactly a tech guru(understatement), so any help in pointing me in the right direction to resolve this would be greatly appreciated.

#2

Several things are unclear are:

  • Who is your DNS host at the moment?
  • What email hosting provider do you intend to use?
  • Are you facing issues with receiving emails or sending emails?

As a start, could you share your domain?

#3

A2Hosting is my Hosting provider for everything. I received 2 new DNS addresses from Cloudflare when I activated the service - “blakely.ns” and "glen.ns.If I don’t use these nameservers my email won’t work at all. But right now I have issues with specific recipients not receiving my emails - even it it’s a direct reply to one of theirs.
my site is zftstudio (.com)

#4

Your MX record is currently pointing at _dc-mx.4a0270531a2c.zftstudio.com which is unusual, although. I would expect to see a hostname like mail.example.com or smtp.example.com. Your unusual hostname does resolve to an IP of 209.124.86.94, which is an a2 address, so it may be right, but it is still worth making sure that you don’t have any :orange: DNS records that need to be :grey:.

Pull up your DNS and verify that any A and AAAA records that need to support connections other than HTTP and HTTPS (such as email) are not :orange: proxied. The Cloudflare proxy only supports HTTP and HTTPS. Hosts that need to be accessed by any other protocols need to be set to :grey: DNS Only.

#5

According to my DNS management page I had the MX pointed to zftstudio,com So I changed that to the mailservers I’m supposed to be using according to a2. (mi3-ss39.a2hosting,com). there is an A record for webmail that is proxied:

Screenshot 2022-06-14 124248
Screenshot 2022-06-14 1242481410×60 5.67 KB

Should that be changed?

#6

The webmail hostname is typically used for HTTP/HTTPS access to your hosted mailbox, and is not normally accessed using email protocols, so it should be fine to leave :orange:.

Pointing your MX to your apex domain is a problem, though, as you will have to choose to either turn it :grey: if you want email to work, which means you will lose all benefits of the Cloudflare proxy.

You would be better off to create a dedicated A record for mail that is :grey: and use it in your MX record in place of your apex domain.

e.g.

A    mail   209.124.86.94       DNS Only    Auto
MX   @      mail.zftstudio.com  DNS Only    Auto

That will allow you to leave your apex domain :orange:

My mail server is the same as the root server. How can I proxy website without losing email access?
#7

I already have a CNAME record named mail. Is there something else I can name it?
And I should replace the MX record not add a new one, correct?

#8

A CNAME will be fine for the mail hostname as long as it is set to :grey: DNS Only and not :orange: proxied.

You are correct. You will want to replace your existing MX record.

#9

So then I don’t need to create a new A record - the CNAME will work instead?

#10

As long as you set the CNAME to :grey: DNS Only. That part is critical.

It will result in a red :warning: icon next to your CNAME to let you know that it will expose your origin server IP, but there is no way around that as long as you are running your email on the same server as your website, so you can ignore it.

#11

Alright I changed everything. Let’s hope this works!
Thank you SOOOOOOOO much for your help. This stuff is all Greek to me.

#12

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