Using Google Apps for your E-mail service
- 20/01/2012 7:12 AM
Applicable Plans - All Cloud Hosting Plans
Using Google Apps for your E-mail service
Overview
eApps offers a comprehensive e-mail solution to our customers, including the Zimbra Enterprise E-mail Suite. However, some customers would prefer to host their e-mail service at a third party provider, such as Google. Google offers several levels of e-mail service, some starting at $5 per user per month.
All of these services allow you to use your own domain name, which means that all traffic to your website for http://example.com will go to your eApps Virtual Server, but all e-mail traffic for user@example.com will go to Google. You can use the Gmail web interface, or configure your desktop e-mail client to send and receive e-mail using your domain, but through the Google e-mail servers.
To use this service, you will to have an account with Google Apps. A Google Apps account is not a Gmail account - it is a different service. If you do not already have one, please go to the Google Apps main page - http://www.google.com/apps/, where you can learn more about the service and sign up. Please take the time to read over the features that are available with Google Apps.
You will need to enable e-mail for your Google Apps account before it can start receiving e-mail, and you may also have to verify that you own the domain that you wish to sign up with. The steps to sign up for Google Apps should walk you through all this. If you have questions on the process, please contact Google support. Google also has various help topics available online. Start here for more information: http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/topic.py?topic=14867
Adding Google MX records to the eApps DNS Manager
Removing existing MX records
Adding Google MX records
Adding Google MX records at your domain registrar or DNS provider
Adding Google MX records to the eApps DNS Manager
To use the Google Apps service for your e-mail instead of using your eApps VS as your mail server, you will need to reconfigure your DNS to point your MX (Mail eXchanger) records to the Google MX servers.
To do this, you will need to edit the settings for the domain in the eApps DNS Manager, which is located in the Customer Portal - http://portal.eapps.com. The full User Guide for the DNS Manager is here - http://support.eapps.com/portal/dns.
Removing existing MX records
Once you have logged in to the Portal, click on the DNS Manager tab at the top of the screen. This will show you the domains you have in your account in the Hosted Domains List. To the right of the domain you wish to change, there will be an Edit link (a small pencil). Click on the pencil.
In the Email handling (MX) section, change the current MX record setup to No MX - this domain will not be able to receive any email. What this does is remove all existing MX records, which will then allow you to create new ones.
Once you have made this change, click on Update Domain.
Once the screen refreshes, you can scroll down to view the DNS records, which will now have no MX records listed.
Adding Google MX records
You will now need to add the Google MX records to your DNS, using the correct priority. To begin, click on Add New Record.
There are a total of 5 MX records to enter, which must be done one at a time, and in the order shown below.
| Priority | MX record |
| 1 | ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM |
| 5 | ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM |
| 5 | ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM |
| 10 | ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM |
| 10 | ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM |
In the ADD/EDIT DNS RECORD FOR DOMAIN: DOMAIN.COM screen, there are several options you will need to enter.
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Name - leave blank
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Type - choose MX from the drop down menu
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TTL - enter 600
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Priority - enter the priority of the MX record
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Value - enter the value of the MX record (the value is too long to show correctly in the text box)
Once you have added the information, click on Save Record.
Add all five records in the same manner, using the correct priority and Mail server name. Once all the records are added, they will look similar to this:
As with all DNS changes, please allow up to 48 hours for the changes to propagate. However, the propagation time is usually only one to two hours total.
Adding Google MX records at your domain registrar or DNS provider
If you do not use eApps DNS for your domains but still want to use Google Apps for your e-mail, you can do so by simply adding the Google MX records at your registrar or DNS provider. See the available Google Apps help for more information - http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=33352. The entire list of Help articles is here: http://www.google.com/support/a/.
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Google's page on Creating MX Records has instructions on how to set up MX records at many hosting providers. |
If you have questions on how to configure Google Apps or how to set up your DNS at your registrar or DNS provider, you will need to either contact Google support or your registrar/DNS provider's support for assistance.