Mail Server Question

[jbrusie]

Can I load up a mail server if the webserver is off site for the same website.com?

 

[John Lewis]

Inbound mail depends upon how much control you have over your DNS record. Adding a MX record to DNS will allow you to point inbound mail to a mail server at another host.

Outbound mail can be more of a problem. You can send outbound mail for your domain from anywhere, however if you are planning to host your mail on your own site, you may need to use a relay in order to keep your email from being flagged as spam. Your ISP or your hosting company may provide a relay service, but these are often limited to low volume use.

 

[jbrusie]

Yea, as I was typing the question I thought it may be possible but would be pretty much a pain...

I just think I'm better off bringing the whole thing in house...

Thanks

 

[RhythmAce]

If you are going to have a lot of heavy traffic on your website then using a hosting service is a very good idea, especially if you have a lot of graphic or dynamic content. Webservers and mail servers know nothing about each other. All you need to do if you haven't already done so is create and 'A" record for you mail server. To do this just point the name of you mail server, let's say mail.yourdomain.com to the ip address of your mail server. Then edit your 'MX' record to show that mail.yourdomain.com will handle the mail for yourdomain.com. If you have a huge amount of mail coming into your server, you may want to add a secondary mail server in case your primary goes down. If mail is very light, then this is not necessary because most mail will be queued on the sender's server for a few days or so.