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  2. WHM
  3. DNS Functions
  4. Email Routing Configuration
whmui mx dns email

Email Routing Configuration

Valid for versions 96 through 128

Version:

96

130

Last modified: 2026 February 18

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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. If you use an external email scanning service or a custom mail delivery solution, you may need to update the domain’s mail exchanger (MX) entry through this interface. The MX entry determines which server receives incoming messages for a domain.

Configure Email Routing

To configure the entry for each destination mail server, perform the following steps:

  1. Navigate to WHM’s Email Routing Configuration interface (WHM » Home » DNS Functions » Email Routing Configuration).
  2. In the Choose a Domain to Edit section, select the domain that you want to configure for email routing.
  3. Click Edit. A new interface will appear.
  4. To configure email routing for the domain, select one of the following settings: Automatically Detect Configuration, Local Mail Exchanger, Backup Mail Exchanger, or Remote Mail Exchanger.
  5. Configure the desired settings for each MX entry in the MX Entries Settings.
  6. Click Save.

Automatically Configure Email Routing

Use the recommended Automatically Detect Configuration setting to allow the system to choose the appropriate email routing option. The system queries the domain’s MX record in the local zone file and applies a routing setting based on the results.

The system 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).

Manually Configure Email Routing

To manually configure email routing for a domain, select one of the following settings:

Local Mail Exchanger

Select this setting to configure the server to always accept mail for the domain.

Backup Mail Exchanger

Select this setting to configure the server to accept mail for the domain and store it until a higher priority mail server becomes available.

Remote Mail Exchanger

Select this setting to configure 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 Settings

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