For my business characteristics I need to handle my dns where my DNS providers are, so I cannot transfer my zone to Netlify. Right now I configured a CNAME to map my domain with netlify but because of the CNAME I can’t use one of my emails systems. I would like to use a A record instead. Could I do that, how? I was looking into the documentations but I was not able to find nothing useful.
Thanks,
Yasiel Cabrera
@yasiel9506, if you use an IP address you direct all global site traffic to a single CDN node instead of directing the traffic to the CDN node closest geographically to the request. We don’t recommend using an IP address for that reason.
I’m curious about how a CNAME record would prevent an email system from being available. Maybe we can find a solution for that issue so you can keep using the CNAME. Would you be willing to please explain more about the specifics of that issue?
What CNAME DNS record was created and how is that record affecting the email system?
Hi Luke, Thanks for your reply.
I had some issues receiving email after I added the CNAME record, I asked to the technical support from my email provider and this is the answer I got:
The issue is coming from the CNAME that you have set as usually the mails ( receiving ) does not work when you have a CNAME record set so you would have to remove it if you want to be able to receive them.
I removed the CNAME for the root of the domain and moved my netlify site to a subdomain so i don’t affect my emails and I can use a CNAME normally but I would like to use my netlify site at the root of the domain without any subdomain and keep my emails working but looks like I can’t use a CNAME, What can I do?
Please tell us your hostname so we can look at its config specifically, and give you better advice.
My domain is cabyas.com and my Netlify site is cabyas.netlify.com
Right now I moved my email to a subdomain so the CNAME doesn’t affect it but I would like to find a solution to restore it to the root of the domain.
My understanding is that the email servers for a domain are controlled primarily by the MX records for the domain. For example, for netlify.com those records are found below (as returned by the command line tool dig):
$ dig netlify.com MX +noall +answer
; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> netlify.com MX +noall +answer
;; global options: +cmd
netlify.com. 3599 IN MX 5 alt1.aspmx.l.google.com.
netlify.com. 3599 IN MX 1 aspmx.l.google.com.
netlify.com. 3599 IN MX 5 alt2.aspmx.l.google.com.
netlify.com. 3599 IN MX 10 aspmx2.googlemail.com.
netlify.com. 3599 IN MX 10 aspmx3.googlemail.com.
However, I find no MX records for cabyas.com. Instead, when I query the CNAME record is returned instead:
$ dig cabyas.com MX +noall +answer
; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> cabyas.com MX +noall +answer
;; global options: +cmd
cabyas.com. 3599 IN CNAME cabyas.netlify.com.
This is a new scenario for me as I have not seen this before.
It is possible for the apex/root domain name (cabyas.com or netlify.com for example) to have both MX and other record types records associated with it. Here is netlify.com showing an a record also (in addition to the MX records above):
$ dig netlify.com A +noall +answer
; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> netlify.com A +noall +answer
;; global options: +cmd
netlify.com. 19 IN A 104.248.78.24
I suspect the issue here is that using a CNAME on an apex/root domain is not part of the DNS specification (although many DNS services do support this non-standard DNS record type). I’m guessing that because the CNAME is present the DNS service won’t allow any MX records. Can they confirm that this is the case?
Does your DNS service allow you to have an A record for the apex/root domain at the same time as MX records? I’m assuming they will as this is part of the DNS specification so it should be allowed.
If so, please change the CNAME for the apex/root domain to the A record specified here:
If you are using the IP address for your apex/root domain, then please make a subdomain (like www) the primary domain for your site for best performance. (I did check and www.cabyas.com is already the primary domain for the site so please just leave that as is.)
Please let us know if there are any questions about this and/or if it doesn’t resolve the issue.