1. cPanel & WHM Documentation
  2. WHM
  3. DNS Functions
  4. Email Routing Configuration
whmui mx dns email

Email Routing Configuration

Valid for versions 96 through the latest version

Version:

96

Last modified: June 13, 2024

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Note:

Your hosting provider can enable or disable this interface for resellers in WHM's Edit Reseller Nameservers and Privileges interface (WHM >> Home >> Resellers >> Edit Reseller Nameservers and Privileges).

Overview

The Email Routing Configuration interface allows you to configure the entry for each destination mail server.

How to edit MX entries

A mail exchanger (MX) entry determines which server receives mail for a domain name. To edit your server’s MX entries, perform the following steps:

  1. In the Choose a Domain to Edit section, find the name of the domain in the list for which you wish to configure MX entries.
  2. Click Edit. A new interface will appear.
  3. Select an Email Routing setting for the domain.
  4. Enter the desired settings for each MX entry in the MX Entries section.
  5. Click Save.

Email Routing

After selecting a domain to edit, you can choose one of the following Email Routing settings:

Automatically Detect Configuration

The recommended Automatically Detect Configuration setting lets the system choose the most appropriate Email Routing setting, based on a query of the MX record in the local zone file.

The system queries the MX record and uses the following criteria to determine the Email Routing setting:

  • If the lowest priority mail exchanger points to an IP address on this server, the system selects the Local Mail Exchanger setting.
  • If a mail exchanger with a higher priority points to an IP address on this server, the system selects the Backup Mail Exchanger setting.
  • If there are no mail exchangers that point to an IP address on this server, the system selects the Remote Mail Exchanger setting.
Important:
  • This setting only detects the local zone file entries and does not perform an actual DNS lookup. This setting is set upon configuration and does not automatically update. If changes are required, an administrator will need to manually adjust the MX Records in the DNS Zone Manager.
  • The system cannot perform automatic detection for the Remote Mail Exchanger setting if the MX entry does not resolve (for example, if you mistype a domain name or enter one that does not exist). Instead, the system generates a warning and defaults to the last known Email Routing setting.
  • For the Automatically Detect Configuration setting to treat additional IP addresses as local, you must add them to the list of local IP addresses. Add IP addresses to the list in WHM’s Configure Remote Service IPs interface (WHM » Home » IP Functions » Configure Remote Service IPs).

Local Mail Exchanger

The Local Mail Exchanger setting causes the server to always accept mail for the domain.

Backup Mail Exchanger

The Backup Mail Exchanger setting causes the server to accept mail for the domain and store it until a higher priority mail server becomes available.

Remote Mail Exchanger

The Remote Mail Exchanger setting causes the server to never accept mail for the domain. The system will always assign the lowest priority value to servers with this setting.

MX Entries

You can configure the following values for each MX entry:

  • TTL — This integer value specifies the time to live (TTL). TTL indicates how long a particular record remains in memory, in seconds, before it refreshes. This value defaults to 14400.
  • Priority — This integer value represents the priority order of the mail server, in relation to other MX entries. The lower the Priority value, the higher the server’s priority. This value defaults to a value that is 10 higher than the highest existing MX entry’s priority.
    Note:
    • Servers with the lowest Priority values act as the primary mail servers.
    • Servers with higher Priority values act as secondary mail servers.
    • If multiple mail servers have the same Priority value, the system distributes mail at that Priority value to those servers randomly.
  • MX Destination — Enter the name of the mail server (for example, mail.example.com).

Add and delete MX entry text boxes

  • To add a new MX entry text box, click Add Another MX Entry Field. A new row will appear in the table with the (new) label in the right column.
  • To delete a row, click Delete next to that MX entry.

Additional Documentation