Custom MX and A Records
What precisely is an A record? What's an MX record? What are their jobs inside the Domain Name System?
The word “hosting” doesn't describe a particular service, but several services that offer different functions to a domain name. Having a site and e-mails, for instance, are two independent services although in the general case they come together, so many people think of them as one single service. In reality, every single domain name has a couple of DNS records called A and MX, which show the server that manages each specific service - the first one is a numeric IP address, which defines where the website for the domain name is loaded from, while the latter is an alphanumeric string, which shows the server that handles the e-mails for the domain name. As an example, an A record is 123.123.123.123 and an MX record can be mx1.domain.com. Whenever you open a site or send an e-mail, the global DNS servers are contacted to check the name servers that a domain name has and the traffic/message is first forwarded to that company. In case you have custom records on their end, the browser request or the email will be sent to the correct server. The idea behind employing separate records is that the two services work with different web protocols and you could have your website hosted by one provider and the e-mails by another.
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Custom MX and A Records in Cloud Hosting
If you have a
cloud hosting account with our company and you want to switch either your website or your emails to a different provider, it'll take you literally only 2 mouse clicks to do it. Our Hepsia Control Panel offers an easy-to-use DNS Records tool, where all your domains and subdomains will be listed alphabetically and you'll be able to see and edit the A and/or MX records for any of them. If you wish to use a different e-mail provider and they ask you to set up more MX records than the standard 2, it's not going to take more than a couple of clicks either to add them. You may also set different latency for these records and the lower the latency, the greater the priority a particular MX record will have. The propagation of every record that you change or create will not take more than several hours and if needed, you'll also be able to set the so-called Time-To-Live value, which reveals how long a record will stay active after it's modified or deleted.
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Custom MX and A Records in Semi-dedicated Servers
If you buy a
semi-dedicated server plan through our company, you'll be able to see and edit the A and MX records for any of the domain addresses or subdomains you host within the account. The Hepsia CP, which you will get to manage the account, provides an innovative, though easy-to-use tool in which all hosts are going to be listed in alphabetical order and you're going to be able to change their records with no more than a couple of mouse clicks. If you have to set up a new record, it's going to be equally simple - select the domain/subdomain, enter the IP address or mail server record and you will be ready. You will also be able to set different priority for the MX records which you create in case that you decide to use a third-party e-mail provider and they ask you to set up additional records apart from the 2 default ones. In case you encounter any troubles, we have a detailed Help section with videos in which you can see first-hand how to setup or edit any record.