Are You Prepared For Disaster? Part II
In a thread I started here, I advised on how to be ready for disaster. This involves backing up your web server of course, but there are other considerations as well. One strategy that I strongly advise is to have your email hosted on another server than your web site. If your web site goes down, your users will tend to go and look for your email address and then email you to find out what's wrong. If your email goes down at the same time as your web site it won't be good for business.
A robust free solution to email hosting is Google Apps. It achieves the initial objective of getting your mail off your web hosting server. Google's infrastructure is as robust as it gets, and their uptime is enviable. You can send and receive email from your desktop, or if need be via the web interface from any browser anywhere. Whether you use your mail client or a browser, the email and folders are always synchronized between the two. And you get the added benefit of no spam. The only problem is that it can be very difficult to find out how it works and what to do to make it work. What I propose to do here is explain what it is, why you need it and how to implement it.
Domain Name Services
First you need to know a little bit about Domain Name Services, or DNS for short. When someone sends an email to you@yourdomain.com from their mail client here is what happens. First, their mail client asks its DNS server for the address of the mail server for yourdomain.com. If its DNS server does not have this information in its cache, it will ask one of the root servers what is the address of the authority DNS server for yourdomain.com (there are about 30 root servers in the world). When it gets this information it will repeat the request, but this time sending it directly to the DNS server at either your domain registrar or your web hosting provider depending on how you set your web hosting up (more on this later). When it gets the IP address of the mail server handling your mail it initiates a session using Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) on port 25 of that address. When it succeeds in communicating with your SMTP server, it will send the mail and close the session. Of course, if your SMTP server is unavailable, the mail will not get sent and it will be bad for your business. This is why having a robust email server infrastructure is possibly even more important than having robust web hosting.
Where to Host Your DNS
A minute ago I said your DNS will be hosted with your registrar or with your web hosting provider. When you registered your domain, the authority DNS server for that domain was with your registrar. When you set up your web hosting, if you are like most people, you just went back to your registrar's web site and told it to move DNS services to your web hosting provider. In fact, if you are really like most people, you don't even remember doing this because you did not even understand what you were doing. This is an ok solution, but it would have been better to leave the DNS hosting with your registrar and simply modify the DNS entries to point at your web hosting provider. So the first thing to do, if you are just setting up your domain is to leave DNS management with the registrar. When you install your domain in your Plesk/CPanel/Webmin interface, you will be given an IP address. Simply go back to the DNS management portal at your registrar and enter this information in the A record. That way you will keep your DNS hosting separate from your web hosting.
Setting Up Email With Google Apps Just finding the right web page in the Google maze can be daunting. To start with, go to www.google.com/apps/. This may take you to different pages depending on where you are in the world. Somewhere on the page you should see buttons for business and education IT managers. Click the button for business IT managers, don't go to Gmail. On the page that comes up you will see a button marked Free Trial. Don't go there either. It may not be obvious looking at this page that there is anything free to be had at all other than a trial period for a paid product, but there is. Look around the page for Standard Edition. Click on the link. On the resultant page, click the button entitled Get Started or something similar. This will take you to the elusive free Google Apps signup page.
The first thing to do is tell Google what domain you are using. Enter your root domain name without the www in front, for example, yourdomain.com. Click the radio button that says you are the domain administrator and then submit your domain.
The next page (step 2 of 3) will be a form where you type in your name and so on. Fill in the details and submit. You should now see a page with the message Welcome to Google Apps. Google needs to be sure that you own the domain you are trying to set upl. To prove you own the domain you will need to do one of two things: upload a small stub of text that Google will give you, or modify a CNAME record in your DNS settings. If you have authorization to upload files to your web server, Google recommends the former. I am assuming that this is the case, so we will proceed in this manner.
Click the radio button that says Upload an HTML file to yourdomain.com, then submit. Follow the instructions on the page that comes up. The easiest way to do this is to copy the text supplied by Google into a plain text editor like notepad (not a word processor) and save it using the name they provide. Using an ftp client like FileZilla, or using your Cpanel/Plesk/Webmin administrator control panel, upload the file to the root directory of your web server. This is the same directory where you find index.html, index.php or index.htm. Click the button that indicates you have done this.
Now you can follow Google's Setup Guide, or you can do it directly. We are not going to use the setup guide here, as it covers too much ground. Click the link that indicates you wish to skip it. This will bring you to the Dashboard. You will see your domain name in bold type near the top left of the page. Underneath there are links to view users (there should already be one which you created on signup), create users and manage your account information. Under Service Settings you will see a list of the services you have, and email is notably absent. Click Add more services. Then choose email. Now you have email added.
Visit http://mail.google.com/a rdomain.com, replacing yourdomain.com with your real domain. This will take you to your email inbox. Now you can move your MX records. In the upper right corner of the page you will see a Help link. Click it. On the page that comes up there is a list of help topics. Click Setting Up Email Delivery. On the next page, click Setting Up Email Delivery again.
If you see your registrar listed, click on it. Otherwise, click on general MX record instructions. You can also watch the video. At this writing the MX records you need are:
1 ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
5 ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
5 ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
10 ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
10 ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM
Be sure to delete any existing MX records in your DNS setup. You must only have Google's MX records for this to work. Once you have done this, all your email will be delivered to your Google Apps account. You are almost done, but we still need to configure IMAP so that you can get your email on your computer in your usual email client. Please note, it may take up to 48 hours for your MX records to propagate so you may find some mail going to your old mail server for a day or two.
Setting Up IMAP
Go back to your inbox. This is found at http://mail.google.com/a rdomain.com. You may need to log in again. When you get there look for a link called Settings in the upper right corner of the browser page. Click it, then click the tab entitled Forwarding and POP/IMAP. In the tab, click Enable IMAP, then click configuration instructions under Configure your email client. Choose your email client, and follow the instructions. Be very careful to do everything as it is explained, even if you are accustomed to setting up email clients. Pay close attention to port numbers and security settings. When you are done you should be able to fetch your mail using your mail client.
IMAP is exceedingly cool. In your mail client create a new folder. Then drag an email into it. Now log into your web mail interface on Google Apps, and presto! There is the folder you just created with your email in it. But more importantly, your mail is now hosted on the most robust servers on the planet, and will not become unavailable if your web server goes down. You are even more disaster-proof than ever.
A robust free solution to email hosting is Google Apps. It achieves the initial objective of getting your mail off your web hosting server. Google's infrastructure is as robust as it gets, and their uptime is enviable. You can send and receive email from your desktop, or if need be via the web interface from any browser anywhere. Whether you use your mail client or a browser, the email and folders are always synchronized between the two. And you get the added benefit of no spam. The only problem is that it can be very difficult to find out how it works and what to do to make it work. What I propose to do here is explain what it is, why you need it and how to implement it.
Domain Name Services
First you need to know a little bit about Domain Name Services, or DNS for short. When someone sends an email to you@yourdomain.com from their mail client here is what happens. First, their mail client asks its DNS server for the address of the mail server for yourdomain.com. If its DNS server does not have this information in its cache, it will ask one of the root servers what is the address of the authority DNS server for yourdomain.com (there are about 30 root servers in the world). When it gets this information it will repeat the request, but this time sending it directly to the DNS server at either your domain registrar or your web hosting provider depending on how you set your web hosting up (more on this later). When it gets the IP address of the mail server handling your mail it initiates a session using Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) on port 25 of that address. When it succeeds in communicating with your SMTP server, it will send the mail and close the session. Of course, if your SMTP server is unavailable, the mail will not get sent and it will be bad for your business. This is why having a robust email server infrastructure is possibly even more important than having robust web hosting.
Where to Host Your DNS
A minute ago I said your DNS will be hosted with your registrar or with your web hosting provider. When you registered your domain, the authority DNS server for that domain was with your registrar. When you set up your web hosting, if you are like most people, you just went back to your registrar's web site and told it to move DNS services to your web hosting provider. In fact, if you are really like most people, you don't even remember doing this because you did not even understand what you were doing. This is an ok solution, but it would have been better to leave the DNS hosting with your registrar and simply modify the DNS entries to point at your web hosting provider. So the first thing to do, if you are just setting up your domain is to leave DNS management with the registrar. When you install your domain in your Plesk/CPanel/Webmin interface, you will be given an IP address. Simply go back to the DNS management portal at your registrar and enter this information in the A record. That way you will keep your DNS hosting separate from your web hosting.
Setting Up Email With Google Apps Just finding the right web page in the Google maze can be daunting. To start with, go to www.google.com/apps/. This may take you to different pages depending on where you are in the world. Somewhere on the page you should see buttons for business and education IT managers. Click the button for business IT managers, don't go to Gmail. On the page that comes up you will see a button marked Free Trial. Don't go there either. It may not be obvious looking at this page that there is anything free to be had at all other than a trial period for a paid product, but there is. Look around the page for Standard Edition. Click on the link. On the resultant page, click the button entitled Get Started or something similar. This will take you to the elusive free Google Apps signup page.
The first thing to do is tell Google what domain you are using. Enter your root domain name without the www in front, for example, yourdomain.com. Click the radio button that says you are the domain administrator and then submit your domain.
The next page (step 2 of 3) will be a form where you type in your name and so on. Fill in the details and submit. You should now see a page with the message Welcome to Google Apps. Google needs to be sure that you own the domain you are trying to set upl. To prove you own the domain you will need to do one of two things: upload a small stub of text that Google will give you, or modify a CNAME record in your DNS settings. If you have authorization to upload files to your web server, Google recommends the former. I am assuming that this is the case, so we will proceed in this manner.
Click the radio button that says Upload an HTML file to yourdomain.com, then submit. Follow the instructions on the page that comes up. The easiest way to do this is to copy the text supplied by Google into a plain text editor like notepad (not a word processor) and save it using the name they provide. Using an ftp client like FileZilla, or using your Cpanel/Plesk/Webmin administrator control panel, upload the file to the root directory of your web server. This is the same directory where you find index.html, index.php or index.htm. Click the button that indicates you have done this.
Now you can follow Google's Setup Guide, or you can do it directly. We are not going to use the setup guide here, as it covers too much ground. Click the link that indicates you wish to skip it. This will bring you to the Dashboard. You will see your domain name in bold type near the top left of the page. Underneath there are links to view users (there should already be one which you created on signup), create users and manage your account information. Under Service Settings you will see a list of the services you have, and email is notably absent. Click Add more services. Then choose email. Now you have email added.
Visit http://mail.google.com/a rdomain.com, replacing yourdomain.com with your real domain. This will take you to your email inbox. Now you can move your MX records. In the upper right corner of the page you will see a Help link. Click it. On the page that comes up there is a list of help topics. Click Setting Up Email Delivery. On the next page, click Setting Up Email Delivery again.
If you see your registrar listed, click on it. Otherwise, click on general MX record instructions. You can also watch the video. At this writing the MX records you need are:
1 ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
5 ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
5 ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
10 ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
10 ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM
Be sure to delete any existing MX records in your DNS setup. You must only have Google's MX records for this to work. Once you have done this, all your email will be delivered to your Google Apps account. You are almost done, but we still need to configure IMAP so that you can get your email on your computer in your usual email client. Please note, it may take up to 48 hours for your MX records to propagate so you may find some mail going to your old mail server for a day or two.
Setting Up IMAP
Go back to your inbox. This is found at http://mail.google.com/a rdomain.com. You may need to log in again. When you get there look for a link called Settings in the upper right corner of the browser page. Click it, then click the tab entitled Forwarding and POP/IMAP. In the tab, click Enable IMAP, then click configuration instructions under Configure your email client. Choose your email client, and follow the instructions. Be very careful to do everything as it is explained, even if you are accustomed to setting up email clients. Pay close attention to port numbers and security settings. When you are done you should be able to fetch your mail using your mail client.
IMAP is exceedingly cool. In your mail client create a new folder. Then drag an email into it. Now log into your web mail interface on Google Apps, and presto! There is the folder you just created with your email in it. But more importantly, your mail is now hosted on the most robust servers on the planet, and will not become unavailable if your web server goes down. You are even more disaster-proof than ever.
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