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Setting up corporate emails doesn’t only look professional but is also helpful for relaying information to your employees. However, setting up such an email is not as easy as it may seem. There are quite a few DNS Record types you need to fill and maintain in case you decide to change your nameserver.
As such, many people question if tinkering with their nameserver could possibly mess up their email. Well, let’s find out!
What Is A Nameserver?
A nameserver is meant to connect your domain with the corresponding IP address of the server. In simpler words, it provides a computer-readable address to the websites you search for in your browser. It does so by pointing to the correct DNS server that contains all the records for the website you’re trying to access.
One of these records is the MX record which points to the mail server you are using. If there is any change in the MX record, your email client will stop receiving and sending mails.
Effects Of Changing Nameserver On Email
If you decide to change your nameserver and update the DNS records accordingly, it will not affect your email. With that said, once you change your nameservers, you must copy over all of the DNS records you previously had on your last nameserver. Particularly, you need to copy over the MX records, as this is the one that is responsible for pointing to your email server.
If you choose to change any other DNS records or don’t copy the MX record, your email will be unresponsive since the server will not know where exactly to send the mail. Similarly, if you want to change your email hosting or mail server, you would have to update the MX records so they point to the newer server.
What DNS Changes Can Affect Email
Apart from the scenario explained above, changing the TXT, IMAP, POP, and SMPT will also affect your email. If you decide to change your IMAP information or service provider, you will need to back up your mail and settings and transfer them from your old provider to the new one.
Similarly, if you decide to make changes in POP, your email can go unresponsive since POP does not back up your mails, nor reflects the changes you make on other devices.
If you decide to change your email’s domains, the SMTP server will not reflect those changes as it will always point to the original email and domain. A simple workaround for this is to delete and recreate the email addresses on the new domain.
What Are Records?
Seeing all the different record names being hurled around and have no idea what they mean? Let’s dive into a short crash course entailing all the main things you should know about each type of record:
- A Record
The A record points you to the IP address of the domain you have searched for. It comes with two fields: the hostname and the corresponding IP address for that hostname. The hostname is your domain, like facebook.com, while the IP address would be something like 66.220.144.0.
- CNAME Record
The CNAME record comes in handy if you have an alias for your website. For example, typing fb.com and facebook.com opens up the same website. This is achieved through the two fields in the CNAME record: one is the alias name, and the other is the actual name of the website you’re trying to access.
- NS Record
There are a ton of DNS records being managed over the globe for each registered domain. However, storing all this data in one huge server isn’t practically possible, and neither is it a very smart thing to do. Therefore, most of the data is saved on DNS servers, similar to how you save files in folders on your computer’s desktop.
Now, the NS record tells the internet where the DNS records are located within the domain you are searching. Domains usually rely on multiple nameservers, so even if a nameserver fails, others are available to back up the DNS query and prevent your website from being unreachable.
- MX Record
As mentioned before, MX records are responsible for the email servers and come with the ‘alias’ name of a website which is your domain name, and the address for the mail server. Changing the mail servers would mean you are now being redirected to new email servers, and you would have to change your email provider as well.
- TXT Record
The TXT is a type of record containing text information for usage outside your domain, commonly used for verification purposes and keeping your information secure. The TXT record is classified into further subtypes, such as DKIM, DMARC, and SPF, all with adding various features for verification and authentication of your emails.
A practical example can be seen by examining the DKIM record, which adds a digital signature to each of your outgoing messages. This signature lets the receiver verify if the email came from the correct organization or not, keeping the chat secure from outsiders.
What Are Protocols
Protocols are a predetermined set of ways that dictate how a request or message is sent or received. You’ll come across several protocols while managing your website, with some specially responsible for sending, receiving, and saving emails.
- POP
The Post Office Protocol (POP) is one of the older protocols used to send emails from an email server to the receiver’s email client. POP contacts your email server and downloads any new messages onto your device, deleting the original data from the email server.
Due to this feature, if you download an email on one device, you won’t be able to re-download it from another device since the email will already have been deleted from the email server.
- IMAP
The Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) works similarly to POP, allowing you to view all your emails. However, IMAP downloads a copy of your emails to your client for you to view them, rather than deleting them like POP.
This feature makes it possible to see your emails from multiple devices, as they are always available on the server. Moreover, IMAP also allows you to choose if you want to delete specific emails from your server.
- SMTP
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, commonly known as SMTP, is used to receive emails from the email client and relay them to the recipient’s SMTP, ensuring that the appropriate email client receives the email. While this protocol doesn’t have much to do with viewing and deleting emails, it plays a major role in reliably and securely delivering emails to different clients.
Conclusion
Changing any DNS record apart from the MX record will probably not cause any problems with your email. However, when changing nameservers, make sure that you copy over any existing DNS records, especially the MX record, to avoid errors like 421.
