Topic: Handling domains - e-mail locally, web server externally

[judgej]

I wonder how other people handle this (presumably common) situation?

A client has a domain example.com. They wish to host a website with a third party hosting company, and they wish to manage all their e-mail on their local SME server.

So, the SME server is set up with the domain example.com The problem is, if they try to view the website example.com (or www.example.com), the SME server will take that as local, and try to deliver its own website. How would the setup work so that employees on the local network behind the SME server would access the remote website and not the local SME server?

I'm assuming the public DNS entry is fully under the client's control.

-- JJ

[Frank VB]

On my SME I solved this as follows:

1. Open the server manager and navigate towards the "Hostname and adresses" panel.
2. You'll see a hostname "www.yourdomain.com". As you can see the column "location" has a value "self" which means that the www site is on the server itself.
3. Click the "Modify" link and change the location to "Remote".
4. Click the "Next" button and provide the IP address of the (external) server where your website is hosted. The web site hosting company should be able to provide you with this information.
5. Click "Next", review the changes you've made and click "Add". The IP address you entered should now be listed in the column "IP address".
6. Open your browser and enter the URL "www.yourdomain.com" and you will see the website on the external server. Perhaps a page refresh could be needed.
7. Make sure that you ask the internet service provider (or whoever holds the DNS records on his DNS server) to also change the IP address for the www.yourdomain.com towards the same IP address as entered in step 4. If you don't do this you people outside the client's network will still be directed towards the site on the SME server. Take into account that changing a DNS record sometimes takes a few hours to actually work.

Hope this helps you out.
Frank

[judgej]

Aha - thankyou. I never quite understood how that panel worked, until you explained it like that.

So this means that the main domain (e.g. example.com) will *always* be the local SME server, but different servers within that domain can be physically located elsewhere.

-- JJ

[judgej]

I've just realised what the scenario was that I was having problems with, and I think it is just a scenarrio I need to avoid.

The problem I was having, was when I have two SME servers, each handling the same domain, but one for the website and one the mail. While at the office with the server hosting the site, it was not possible to send e-mail to that domain (which should go to the server at the other site) without the local SME server catching it.

The workaround would be to send e-mail to a sub-domain instead, and route that accordingly. It is just e-mail sent to the main domain that would not be possible.

However, your pointers helped me understand that better.

-- JJ