Configure an MX record for email management

Objective

With an MX record, you can link a domain name to the server on your email platform. It is essential for the sender’s email service to reach the recipient’s email service.

Find out how to configure an MX record for your domain name at OVHcloud.

Requirements

• The domain name concerned uses the OVHcloud configuration (i.e. OVHcloud DNS servers).
• You have an MX Plan solution (included in the web hosting plan, a free 100M hosting, or the MX Plan solution ordered separately), one of our OVHcloud email offers, or an external email service.

OVHcloud Control Panel Access

• Direct link: DNS zones
• Navigation path: Web Cloud > DNS zones > Select your domain name

Instructions

Understanding the role of MX records

The MX (Mail eXchange) record is a type of DNS record that determines which receiving email servers are attached to your domain name.

To understand how it works, we will use an example:

• The address sender@otherdomain.ovh sends an email to contact@mydomain.ovh.
• The sending email server (Outgoing mail server) queries the DNS zone for the domain name mydomain.ovh and reads the MX records.
• The email is forwarded to the URL of the MX record that was read.
• The email is sent to the target mx0.mail.ovh.net, which is preceded by the value 0. This value corresponds to the priority: the lowest value is queried first and the highest last. This means that having multiple MX records helps compensate for a lack of response from the server designated by the record with the lowest priority, by moving on to subsequent servers in order of priority.

You can set up multiple MX records for the same domain name. It is then necessary to define a priority number for each of them. MX records are queried in ascending order from lowest number to highest number until a response is received from the receiving server.

OVHcloud MX configuration values

Below, you will find the OVHcloud MX configuration to use for our MX Plan solutions (MX Plan standalone or included in an OVHcloud web hosting plan), Email Pro, Exchange and Zimbra. Our email servers have antispam and antivirus integrated.

These values are common to all of these solutions, with the exception of Private Exchange and Dedicated Exchange.

These MX records must be configured in your domain name’s DNS zone.

Configuring an MX record in an OVHcloud DNS zone

To create or modify the MX records in your domain name’s OVHcloud configuration, log in to the OVHcloud Control Panel, then go to the Web Cloud section. Click the DNS zones menu, then choose the domain name concerned.

The table shows your domain name’s OVHcloud configuration. Each row corresponds to a DNS record.

As a first step, please check whether any MX records already exist in your domain name’s OVHcloud DNS configuration. You can do this using the filtering list located above the table for your DNS zone.
Select the MX type, then confirm to display only the MX DNS records for your DNS zone. Use the screenshot below.

• If MX records already exist and you want to edit them, click the ... button to the right of each table row, and then click Edit Entry.
• If no MX record is present, click the Add record button to the right of the table, then choose MX. Enter the information requested, depending on the email solution you have chosen:

If you have an OVHcloud email solution, please refer to the information provided in the OVHcloud MX configuration step.

Fill in the values, complete the steps, then click Confirm.

If you have another email solution, please refer to the information provided by your email service provider.

Go further

General information about DNS servers

Editing an OVHcloud DNS zone

How to improve email security with an SPF record

How to improve email security with a DKIM record

For specialised services (SEO, development, etc.), contact OVHcloud partners.

If you would like assistance using and configuring your OVHcloud solutions, please refer to our support offers.

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