The term “hosting” doesn't describe only one service, but a set of services that provide different functions to a domain address. Having a website and e-mails, for example, are two independent services despite the fact that in the general case they come together, so many people see them as one single service. In reality, each domain name has a several DNS records called A and MX, which show the server that manages each specific service - the first one is a numeric IP address, which identifies where the site for the domain address is loaded from, while the latter is an alphanumeric string, which shows the server that deals with the emails for the domain address. As an illustration, an A record is 123.123.123.123 and an MX record is mx1.domain.com. Every time you open a site or send an e-mail, the global DNS servers are contacted to check the name servers that a Internet domain has and the traffic/message is first directed to that company. In case you have custom records on their end, the web browser request or the e-mail will then be directed to the correct server. The reasoning behind using separate records is that the two services employ different web protocols and you can have your site hosted by one service provider and the e-mail messages by another.
Custom MX and A Records in Cloud Web Hosting
If you have a cloud web hosting account with our company and you wish to direct either your site or your emails to an alternative company, it will take you literally only 2 clicks to do so. Our Hepsia Control Panel comes with an easy-to-use DNS Records tool, where all your domains and subdomains are going to be listed alphabetically and you'll be able to see and change the A and/or MX records for any of them. If you choose to use a different email provider and they ask you to create more MX records than the standard 2, it's not going to take more than a few clicks either to add them. You can also set different latency for these records and the lower the latency, the higher the priority a particular MX record will have. The propagation of every record that you modify or set up is not going to take more than a few hours and if necessary, you'll also be able to set the so-called Time-To-Live value, which reveals how long a record will stay active after it's modified or deleted.
Custom MX and A Records in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The Hepsia hosting CP, included with our Linux semi-dedicated hosting packages, will allow you to see the A and MX records for each of the domain names or subdomains in your account and if needed, to edit any of them or create new ones. Managing these records is quite easy as all domains/subdomains will be listed alphabetically, so modifying a record is as simple as entering it in a box and saving the change. Setting up a new one takes just a few more clicks and if you experience any issues, you can check out our video tutorials on how to set up A and MX records. Our system is user-friendly enough to be used by individuals with no previous experience, yet advanced enough to give you full control over all records and to enable you to have different A records even for domain.com and www.domain.com. If you're moving your emails to a different service provider and they ask you to create more than two different MX records, you can choose the priority of each one.