Custom DNS on beta server

robmueller · 26 Mar 2007, 12:49 PM

For people with domains pointing to our name servers (ns1.messagingengine.com and ns2.messagingengine.com) you can now change the DNS generated by our nameservers for your domain.

1. Just login at the beta server
http://www.fastmail.fm/beta/

2. Go to Options -> Custom DNS
3. And choose the domain you want to configure DNS for

There's no docs yet, and while DNS isn't that intuitive for most people, hopefully the interface is reasonably straight forward.

One other thing, changes currently take up to 1 hour to become active.

Rob

eggman · 26 Mar 2007, 01:25 PM

hi rob

this looks useful, thanks! I can see a lots of people asking a lot of questions about this feature. The first two of these are below....

1. could this be used for spf? i understand i need TEXT type for that? Is it possible to have that or did you deliberately exclude that?

2. Also what does this mean which shows when i select custom? Does it mean i don't have a server but use fastmail's?

Code:

myhosteddomain.com  Type=CSV  TTL=3600  CSV_DENY_ALL         (no email sending machines identify as myhosteddomain.com)

thanks Eggman

ps: like the interface - well done!

robmueller · 26 Mar 2007, 01:30 PM

1. It's possible, just haven't added it yet.

2. Yes, it's about saying who can use that hostname in an SMTP "HELO" string, see http://mipassoc.org/csv/csa-finch.html and http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-crocker-csv-csa-00 for details. The default says that no-one should be using your domain in an SMTP HELO string.

Rob

eggman · 26 Mar 2007, 01:31 PM

thanks Rob...

Edward Velo · 26 Mar 2007, 06:25 PM

I appreciate this feature!

I guess the "STANDARD_MX", "STANDARD_WEB" and "STANDARD_MAIL" are just internally used labels, to point to your servers?

robmueller · 26 Mar 2007, 06:49 PM

Yes

I thought that was a great idea of Bron's. You can either use the labels for aour internal services, which means if we ever want to change them there's less magic going on under the covers, or actual regular records (eg an IP for A records, a priority and a hostname for MX records, etc).

Rob

ewal · 26 Mar 2007, 10:47 PM

I'm confused.

In my FM Custom DNS it says the following:

Quote:

mydom.com Type=MX TTL=3600 STANDARD_MX (standard email - e.g. [email protected])
*.mydom.com Type=MX TTL=3600 STANDARD_MX (subdomain addressed email - e.g. [email protected])
mydom.com Type=A TTL=3600 STANDARD_WEB (main website - http://mydom.com/)
*.mydom.com Type=A TTL=3600 STANDARD_WEB (subdomain websites - including http://www.mydom.com/)
mail.mydom.com Type=A TTL=3600 STANDARD_MAIL (webmail login - http://mail.mydom.com/)
mydom.com Type=CSV TTL=3600 CSV_DENY_ALL (no email sending machines identify as mydom.com)

However ...

I have, via Zoneedit, my MX records pointed to FM's servers and my 'A' records pointing to my web hosting company (not FM's files space) as follows:

MX records
mydom.com ==> in1.etc and in2.etc
*.mydom.com ==> in1.etc and in2.etc

and two 'A' records as follows:

mydom.com ==> IP address
www.mydom.com ==> same IP address.

So why is FM saying that it is publishing A records for mydom.com??

My MX and A records work as intended btw.

The answer probably lies in my ignorance somewhere.

Ed

DrStrabismus · 27 Mar 2007, 01:25 AM

Fastmail have for a long time provided DNS for all hosted domains.

If you do a lookup starting from the root servers, the lookup wont use fastmail's servers, unless you have them as your domains designated nameservers.

ewal · 27 Mar 2007, 04:40 AM

Doc

If your post refers to my post than I don't understand.

The complete zonefile for my own domain is pointing to zoneedit and I have chosen to only point MX records to the Fastmail smtp servers, with my A records pointing elsewhere. All via Zoneedit.

If your post was not in response to my post, please forgive me.

Ed

FromLine · 27 Mar 2007, 06:26 AM

I have some questions.

Here's my current situation:

My Registrar is namecheap.com. At the Registrar, I have my ns records pointing to zoneedit.

At zoneedit, I set my URL forwarding to the target, my subdomain URL's to their targets, and point my MX Mail records to Fastmail (messagining engine).

Questions:

1) If I chance my ns in fastmail, then go to my registrar and change my ns records to ns1.messagingengine.com and ns2.messagingengine.com.

Correct?

The MX Mail records are already set. Correct?

2) Once 1) above in complete, how do I do the following:

a) Set URL forwarding to a web site hosted elsewhere? Is there cloaking if I forward to a URL like http://208.15.2342.843 ?

b) Create Subdomains?

c) Modify the TITLE (which is shown at the top of the page)

Basically, I'm asking how do I do the things I normally do in ZoneEdit (URL forwarding, cloaking, subdomains, meta tags, titles, etc.

robmueller · 27 Mar 2007, 09:59 AM

ewal: It's our nameservers that are publishing these records. Unless you point the nameserver for your domain to us, it does nothing. So at the moment, since you're pointing the nameserver records for your domain to zoneedit, zoneedit control everything.

Only if you change the nameserver records for your domain to our servers (ns1.messagingengine.com and ns2.messagingengine.com) will it do anything.

FromLine: We're only doing DNS at the moment. We're not doing URL redirection. We're not doing cloaking or meta tags or anything like that. Just pure DNS for now.

Rob

marc1 · 28 Mar 2007, 02:28 PM

this is a great feature.

please consider adding URL redirection and cloaking soon!

also, it might be helpful to notify the user if FM is not the active nameserver of the domain. that is how my dns host does it. they let me edit the DNS records, but they also tell me it is not "active."

robmueller · 29 Mar 2007, 04:23 PM

What exactly is the cloaking you're talking about?

Rob

marc1 · 29 Mar 2007, 11:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by robmueller

What exactly is the cloaking you're talking about?

Rob

URL Redirection within a frame.

http://www.zoneedit.com/doc/faq.html#faq36

marc1 · 29 Mar 2007, 11:16 PM

another interface for URL redirection might be under Files -> Websites, as that is where the sub-domains get defined.

26 Mar 2007, 12:49 PM	#1
robmueller Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 6,102 Representative of: Fastmail.FM	Custom DNS on beta server For people with domains pointing to our name servers (ns1.messagingengine.com and ns2.messagingengine.com) you can now change the DNS generated by our nameservers for your domain. 1. Just login at the beta server http://www.fastmail.fm/beta/ 2. Go to Options -> Custom DNS 3. And choose the domain you want to configure DNS for There's no docs yet, and while DNS isn't that intuitive for most people, hopefully the interface is reasonably straight forward. One other thing, changes currently take up to 1 hour to become active. Rob

26 Mar 2007, 01:25 PM	#2
eggman Essential Contributor Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: AU Posts: 468	hi rob this looks useful, thanks! I can see a lots of people asking a lot of questions about this feature. The first two of these are below.... 1. could this be used for spf? i understand i need TEXT type for that? Is it possible to have that or did you deliberately exclude that? 2. Also what does this mean which shows when i select custom? Does it mean i don't have a server but use fastmail's? Code: myhosteddomain.com Type=CSV TTL=3600 CSV_DENY_ALL (no email sending machines identify as myhosteddomain.com) thanks Eggman ps: like the interface - well done!

27 Mar 2007, 06:26 AM	#10
FromLine The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 2,612	Setup Questions I have some questions. Here's my current situation: My Registrar is namecheap.com. At the Registrar, I have my ns records pointing to zoneedit. At zoneedit, I set my URL forwarding to the target, my subdomain URL's to their targets, and point my MX Mail records to Fastmail (messagining engine). Questions: 1) If I chance my ns in fastmail, then go to my registrar and change my ns records to ns1.messagingengine.com and ns2.messagingengine.com. Correct? The MX Mail records are already set. Correct? 2) Once 1) above in complete, how do I do the following: a) Set URL forwarding to a web site hosted elsewhere? Is there cloaking if I forward to a URL like http://208.15.2342.843 ? b) Create Subdomains? c) Modify the TITLE (which is shown at the top of the page) Basically, I'm asking how do I do the things I normally do in ZoneEdit (URL forwarding, cloaking, subdomains, meta tags, titles, etc.

26 Mar 2007, 01:30 PM	#3
robmueller Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 6,102 Representative of: Fastmail.FM	1. It's possible, just haven't added it yet. 2. Yes, it's about saying who can use that hostname in an SMTP "HELO" string, see http://mipassoc.org/csv/csa-finch.html and http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-crocker-csv-csa-00 for details. The default says that no-one should be using your domain in an SMTP HELO string. Rob

26 Mar 2007, 01:31 PM	#4
eggman Essential Contributor Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: AU Posts: 468	thanks Rob...

26 Mar 2007, 06:25 PM	#5
Edward Velo Essential Contributor Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Brussels, Belgium Posts: 424	I appreciate this feature! I guess the "STANDARD_MX", "STANDARD_WEB" and "STANDARD_MAIL" are just internally used labels, to point to your servers?

26 Mar 2007, 06:49 PM	#6
robmueller Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 6,102 Representative of: Fastmail.FM	Yes I thought that was a great idea of Bron's. You can either use the labels for aour internal services, which means if we ever want to change them there's less magic going on under the covers, or actual regular records (eg an IP for A records, a priority and a hostname for MX records, etc). Rob

27 Mar 2007, 01:25 AM	#8
DrStrabismus The "e" in e-mail Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 2,804	Fastmail have for a long time provided DNS for all hosted domains. If you do a lookup starting from the root servers, the lookup wont use fastmail's servers, unless you have them as your domains designated nameservers.

27 Mar 2007, 04:40 AM	#9
ewal Master of the @ Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: London, UK Posts: 1,327	Doc If your post refers to my post than I don't understand. The complete zonefile for my own domain is pointing to zoneedit and I have chosen to only point MX records to the Fastmail smtp servers, with my A records pointing elsewhere. All via Zoneedit. If your post was not in response to my post, please forgive me. Ed

27 Mar 2007, 09:59 AM	#11
robmueller Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 6,102 Representative of: Fastmail.FM	ewal: It's our nameservers that are publishing these records. Unless you point the nameserver for your domain to us, it does nothing. So at the moment, since you're pointing the nameserver records for your domain to zoneedit, zoneedit control everything. Only if you change the nameserver records for your domain to our servers (ns1.messagingengine.com and ns2.messagingengine.com) will it do anything. FromLine: We're only doing DNS at the moment. We're not doing URL redirection. We're not doing cloaking or meta tags or anything like that. Just pure DNS for now. Rob

28 Mar 2007, 02:28 PM	#12
marc1 Essential Contributor Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 341	this is a great feature. please consider adding URL redirection and cloaking soon! also, it might be helpful to notify the user if FM is not the active nameserver of the domain. that is how my dns host does it. they let me edit the DNS records, but they also tell me it is not "active."

29 Mar 2007, 04:23 PM	#13
robmueller Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 6,102 Representative of: Fastmail.FM	What exactly is the cloaking you're talking about? Rob

29 Mar 2007, 11:16 PM	#15
marc1 Essential Contributor Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 341	another interface for URL redirection might be under Files -> Websites, as that is where the sub-domains get defined.