domain and emails on cpanel, website elsewhere

[pulsarinformatique]

Hi

Currently domain.com as www.domain.com (a cname) is hosted on the cPanel
The emails are also on the same cPanel


For specific reasons we need to move the website only on an external server.

I first thought it would be easy, just updating the A record in the DNS zone editor in the cPanel

BUT I realized the emails SMTP and SSL settings all are using domain.com and NOT mail.domain.com

So changing the domain.com A records will confuse the SMTP settings on all the mail clients already configured, which is what the customer doesn't want.

So is there a way to leave the emails EXACTLY as they are now on the cPanel and move the website elsewhere please?

Thanks

 

[andrew.n]

Yes if you setup a redirect inside cPanel that will forward the visitors to the new website but leave the A record untouched for your email users.

 

[pulsarinformatique]

Hi
Thanks for your answer but I don't fully understand it.
you mean I go in the DOMAIN / REDIRECT pannel in Cpanel ?
but there I will only define 301 redirections from one URL to another URL. I don't see here the way to tell cpanl the website has a different IP than the domain A record in the zone editor.

May be I was not clear enough the new website shared the SAME domain name as the domain set in cpanel.

thanks

 

[quietFinn]

So changing the domain.com A records will confuse the SMTP settings on all the mail clients already configured, which is what the customer doesn't want.

So is there a way to leave the emails EXACTLY as they are now on the cPanel and move the website elsewhere please?

Yes, set mail.domain.com point to cPanel server IP (A record)
and
set MX point to mail.domain.com (MX record).

 

[cPRex]

I prefer @quietFinn 's method of changing the DNS around so things point directly to where you want them to go.

 

[pulsarinformatique]

yes but doing so (as I first tried) will break the settings of all the already configured email clients (outlook and so) where the SMTP is domain.com and not mail.domain.com
Same thing for the SSL certificate that works with domain.com

 

[cPRex]

Ah, that would change the Outlook configuration settings most likely.

A redirect may be the best way to go then.

 

[pulsarinformatique]

but I don't understand this redirect thing. Can you explain please?

 

[cPRex]

@andrew.n - can you provide more details on your plan?

 

[pulsarinformatique]

What do you need more than what I already described?
The cpanel hosts the DNS zone the website and emails.
I need to have the website (with the same domain) hosted elsewhere without changing the emails settings (smtp, ssl, emails clients settings...)

 

[pulsarinformatique]

Sorry to repeat the question but I'm not sure the redirect solution works here

 

[cPRex]

I'm not 100% sure what the redirect proposal was that was mentioned earlier, so I can't really comment on that. That's why I was hoping for an additional explanation.

The change is easy enough to make, but I'm not sure you'll be able to do it without having the users change their mail client settings one time. For example, if they are just using "domain.com" in their client, they would need to make a change. If they are using "mail.domain.com" they would not need to make a change as you'll be doing the following in DNS:

-change the MX record to specifically be mail.domain.com
-change the A record for mail.domain.com to point to the IP address of the server
-change the A record for the main domain.com to point to the remote webserver's IP

As far as I know, there isn't another way to get that working.

 

[pulsarinformatique]

Thanks cPRex, I think you are right.
thanks a lot