Topic: DNS Records - What do I tell them?

[Dan Mikinson]

I've got a quick question regarding my ISP.

What do I tell them to update regarding my ES server for my DNS records.

1. I want to host e-mail LOCALLY on my server.
2. I want my web services hosted EXTERNALLY on another ISP, not on my server.

Is this a problem?  When people surf to mydomain.com I want them to go to the external IP address, not my ES computer.

But I still want to receive and send email from my ES server.

I know I have to tell them to update  their "a records" and their "mx records", but what exactly do I do in this situation?

Dan

[Dan Brown]

Best bet:

www.yourdomain.com in a
mail.yourdomain.com in a
yourdomain.com in a

yourdomain.com in mx mail.yourdomain.com

[Dan Mikinson]

Thank you for your help Dan.

I presume that the first three lines are "A records" and the last is obviously an MX.  So when they type in www.mydomain.com they will get routed to the externally hosted site.

Great!

[Dan Brown]

Yes, that's exactly right.  Good luck!

[IS]

I think you will have a little problem to go outsite the network in the web host :

 - if you configure your e-smith with the name of the host (yourdomain.com), your e-mail will work but a user who is connected in your E-smith will not be able to connect you in your external web site. The E-smith (because you have an internal DNS)  will show you the E-smith home page and not the the web host.

I would like to do exactly the same thing as you, and I know I have to change the internal DNS, but I don't know where and how ...

[Dan Brown]

You shouldn't have a problem with this--queries for www.mydomain.com will still go to the external host.  What will stay on the internal LAN is a query for just "www"--but that can be changed in the "Hostnames and addresses" panel on the e-smith manager.  Just enter the correct IP address of the external host there.

[Alejandro]

Dan: I assume all this works fine when you have an static IP address?
what about a dynamic ip?
what will you suggest?
Ale

[Dan Brown]

Well, I'd suggest getting service with a static IP.  Failing that, I'd say set it up with (e.g.) dyndns.org, let's call it you.dyndns.org.  Configure e-smith to update dyndns.org when the IP changes, and add yourdomain.com as a virtual domain.  Then set things up like this in the DNS records:

www.yourdomain.com IN A [ip of ISP's web server]
yourdomain.com IN CNAME you.dyndns.org
mail.yourdomain.com IN CNAME you.dyndns.org

yourdomain.com IN MX you.dyndns.org