The Perfect E-mail setup - Using Hosted Gmail For Your Domain

This has been the Holy Grail of quests for me for quite some time. It would not be too much of a stretch to say that I live and die by e-mail, and it would be very accurate to describe it as my preferred communication medium. I do not consider personal conversation a medium, everything else is a substitute for actual, in-person conversation, and I happen to think that e-mail is the best.

As mentioned in a previous post, I used to have my e-mail hosted on a server at a co-location facility. When the management team decided to take the server down without warning for a month, I decided it was time to do something else. I believe that I have come up with a pretty decent e-mail solution that is both redundant and very versatile to meet all my needs. I am going to describe what I did to set it up and hope that it helps some people. If anything, it will provide me with some documentation.

My solution is a three-tiered topology which uses Google's "Hosted Gmail" service as the mail back-end, a server running SMTP, IMAP, and other services as a kind of mail front-end, and then the clients themselves as the third tier, running POP, IMAP, or just a web browser as a client.


What you need:
Required

• Your own Domain Name


• Computer Running Linux on your home network


• DSL, Cable, or other "always-on" connection

A more "Recommended" setup would be to replace the server running at home with a server in a managed or co-location facility that you trust. This will be a bit more robust and probably a better solution for uptime of the server. The beauty, of course, is that uptime of the home system is not crucial to receiving your mail because we will be using Google's service as a back-end.

1. The first step to perform was actually done by me as an emergency measure when my e-mail server went down. You need to sign up for the Google Mail and Apps for your Domain service. When I signed up, this was just a gmail-style e-mail service for your own domain. Now, they have added a number of applications that look nice, and I am sure they will be adding more.
2. The Next step is to get yourself a domain. There are so many domain registrars out there, I do not even know which one to pick. Just google it, and register for one. It should not cost you more than $15/yr.
3. Sign up for a free DNS service. I use zoneedit.com and have been very happy with them. Dyndns.com is a good one and may be a solution for step #2 above, as well. Many of you probably have a router that supports one of these two or some other service. I recommend using one supported by your router (it will likely be an advanced option under 'WAN' or 'Networking' or something like that) for reasons which will become apparent later. My instructions will use zoneedit.com. You can always change this later.
4. Tell your domain registrar that you picked in step #2 to point your domain's primary nameservers to the ones specified by the company you picked in step #3. For example, I tell my Domain Registrar to point the 'astroturfgarden.com' domain name servers at 'ns18.zoneedit.com'. This basically says, "Hey, Internet! If you want to talk to some of the great things at Astroturfgarden.com, then you need to first talk to these zoneedit.com guys! Of course, the computer does all that in the background and you never have to worry about it again.
5. Hopefully, by now Google will have gotten back to you and provided you with a hosted gmail domain acccount. Sign in, and set this up.
6. Now you need to point your MX records to google because they are handing your mail. Go to the service you setup in step #3 and configure this. For example, my first MX record is 'ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM' with a "rank" of 0 which means it is the default. Setting up more will create a more robust e-mail system in the event that one or more of Google's servers go down. The Hosted Gmail setup in step #5 should have given you a pointer to the correct MX records.
7. Now, send yourself some mail. You may have to wait up to 48 hours for these changes to completely go through. Also, try testing sending mail from the Google Gmail app.
   

When you have all of the above setup, you'll be ready to move onto the next section, which is definitely a bit more advanced, but I know you can handle it! In the meantime, customize your Google Gmail by loading Greasemonkey onto your firefox browser and getting some cool scripts like Gmail Skins or creating some better keyboard shortcuts and labelling options.