custom subdomains

corbosman

So I had this email back and forth with support about this, but it really left me confused. I think he did not understand me. I have a website on a subdomain. Lets for example sake say I have the website "manatees.nature.com" to show all the awesome manatee shots in nature magazine. I want to host this website at smugmug, because, why not, and where else, right?

But, i also want my readers to send email to editors@manatees.nature.com. The moment I add "manatees.nature.com" as a custom domain, it seems to insist on it being a CNAME to domains.smugmug.com (instead of A records, which would work just fine). But that means I could never have email on editors@manatees.nature.com because you cant mix CNAME and MX records.

Surely this must be an oversight?

(ps, the real domain is https://underwa.ter.net, but I think it seems to confuse people).

leftquark

It appears that the DNS rules do not allow any domains (or sub-domains) with a CNAME to also have an MX record: https://serverfault.com/questions/18000/dns-subdomains-that-require-both-an-mx-record-and-a-cname

corbosman

I know that, that's the problem. I would like my website to be https://underwa.ter.net, and be able to receive email at cor@underwa.ter.net. I would kinda not want to have to redirect that to www.underwa.ter.net, cause that's starting to look pretty ugly. And technically there is absolutely no need for that. I could just add A records pointing to domains.smugmug.com and we'd be all set to go. But the smugmug UI won't let me add that domain unless it's a CNAME. It apparently MUST see a CNAME record (and thus disallowing any email on said custom domain). I think that's unfortunate. Basically you can't receive email on whatever you configure as your custom domain.

Luckily I found a way around it, but don't know if it'll last. I just removed the MX record, added a CNAME, saved the settings on SM, that worked. Then set everything back to A records and MX. And things seem to be working just fine now.

For some reference, as you may wonder why after 14 years I hit this problem just now. I was moving some websites away from wordpress and in the process hit this snag.

leftquark

Keep on the lookout to make sure the SSL certs we automatically generate for you still operate. The CNAME may be required so we can provide https support for you. Otherwise you may have to generate your own SSL certs.