I have a unique problem for which I am not able to find a solution…hopefully people here have come across this before. Web hosting is very new for me so please be kind
I have a domain with Lunarpages. They have messed up my email so many times that I have lost count and I would like to move my Email to a more professional service provider.
Someone in my team recommended looking at Google Apps and office 365 hosted Email. I read a little bit about it and would like to for it but there is a problem As you would expect, they charge on the basis of number of email accounts you have with them. We have about 25 Email accounts in operation, but most of them are used by web applications to send emails and some by back office staff. I don’t want to pay for these Email accounts because they don’t really need that kind of reliability.
I know it is possible to configure ‘Dual Delivery’ in Google and Office 365 such that some accounts are hosted on Google(you pay for these) and can forward other Email accounts on other servers.
But I cant figure how this effects when one has to send Email. For example, of an Email account is not hosted with Google (lets say Lunarpages/GoDaddy) and the MX record points to the Google servers, how can one send an Email from (Lunarpages/Godaddy) such that it does not end up being marked as spam as the server from where the Email originates is not the same as the MX record.
Hope this makes sense…and someone can help/point me in the right dierction.
Instead of trying to firefight the problem with Lunapages would it not be a lot easier to switch to a more reliable web host?
Anyhow, sending email via a different provider from your web site host is very common so having emails marked as spam is unlikely (unless you do something stupid!).
Thanks for your reply. What you are saying is exactly what I am trying to do…move away from LunarPages and find a reliable web host.
Also, I know we can send Email using two Email servers…but not sure how to do it?What is it that I need to change/configure to make sure that Emails sent from both don’t land up in spam.
Normally it’s a case of changing the MX records in your domains DNS settings. The 3rd party email provider will normally provide you with the necessary info (typically 1 or 2 IP addresses, or URL’s).
When the MX records are updated all it does is route all email traffic to a different web host from your web site, you can use your email forms and plain email links as usual.
I found the answer on another forum! All I need to do is edit the SPF. This will tell all the servers in the world receiving my Email that there are more than one Email server which are allowed to send Email for my Domain.
Thank you BlueDreamer! You note in MX record also helped.
Now…the difficult task to deal with Lunarpages and checking if they will allow modifications to MX records adn SPF
So…I spoke with lunarpages and Office 365 support. After a very long support phone calls…I finally figured out how to do this!
The trick is…(mentioned no ware on the net) is to use a ‘Outbound Connector’. So in summary:
Point your low priority MX record to Office 365 (this way office 365 always receives your Email)
Create/sign up for a single account on Office 365.
Create Mail Contact for the Email accounts which you want to manage/host on your local/hosting provider/
Create an Outbound connector and if possible use an IP address instead of a domain name
Configure your Email server to receive Emails from outside and keep them instead of forwarding them again. If you don’t do this you will get a 554 5.4.6 Hop count exceeded - possible mail loop.
Thank you very much for all of you who pointed me in the right direction. I am pleased to say what I understand Email server a bit better.
Also one advice to anyone who does get stuck, you can always try to use your won Email server to play around as it becomes much easier to debug. I used Hmail Server.
Sorry to chime in late but I think you went through a lot of work for nothing.
We do offsite this for all apps – we’ve got an on premises exchange server that no web app touches (even the few left on premises). For outgoing it doesn’t matter – just use localhost or whatever SMTP setup you can get at to get out. For return path it will go to your normal email and you can certainly have accounts with loads of aliases without counting as another user from a Office 365 / Google Apps standpoint.
If it is transnational stuff where delivery matters look at mandrill or sendgrid or Amazon SES.
I guess it was lack of knowledge on how to get ‘Split Delivery’ to work. Plus there is a difference between ‘Split’ and ‘Dual’ delivery for which there are lots of articles on the web. To add to this, the first few Microsoft consultants I got were not 100% clear on what I was after and had limited knowledge. In the end, it was down to me with lots of coffee and some trial and error.
If anyone searches for what I wanted to achieve, there is an article from Microsoft but it talks about pointing MX to your own server and creating mail forwarding rules to forward incoming mails to Office 365. What I wanted was the other way around…and there is no article out there apart from this which clearly says that Office 365 Small Business plan does support this.
Ive been following a number of your posts regarding dual/split mail delivery. I am in the same boat but unable to figure out one step in the process: I put a new mx record at LP to point to my 365 account, added contact and connector in 365 pointing back to LP. Tested it and caused an email loop. Tried support with LP and MS with no luck.
How did you make your mx record at LP so it can also receive email? I think that is my problem. In cPanel I used the mx record to add 365 as priority 0 and send all mail exchange. cpanel mx entry only lets you assign one primary mail server with options for local, backup and remote. I made lunarpages webmail my backup with priority 1. This didnt seem to work (unless ms is down?) I think I have to go into cpanel advanced dns editor and edit the txt spf record but Im not sure.
Can you advise to the setting required to get lunar pages to except mail sent from connector on 365?
Thank you so much. Not sure how the heck you figured this out!
As you would expect, they charge on the basis of number of email accounts you have with them. We have about 25 Email accounts in operation, but most of them are used by web applications to send emails and some by back office staff. I don’t want to pay for these Email accounts because they don’t really need that kind of reliability.