Modify mx for multihosted domains

[mavreela]

I know that with a multihosted domain any mail sent to that domain is forwarded to single address, and you cannot use the control panel to create separate pop boxes or redirects for different usernames at that domain.

But can you set the mx record on the multihosted domain to point to the primary domain? I would the multihosted domain to act as though it was a parked domain for the purpose of mail. i.e. person1@maindomain.com has a pop box so any mail sent to person1@multihosted.com will also be recieved there. person2@maildomain.com has no redirect of pop box so will be caught by the catchall address, and person2@multihosted.com will be caught by the same catchall address.

I can't think of any reason why this should not work.

[jason]

You can set up redirects from specific addresses on a multihosted domain. You should see the multihosted domain in the drop downlist in the forwarders section of cpanel.

Personally, I set up pop boxes on my main domain and point a forwarder from the multihosted domain at that box. It isn't perfect, but it works. For example, if someone sendssomething to me@multihosted.com (which is defined in Cpanel), it gets forwarded to me@maindomain.com.

Pointing MX records won't work becasue doing that only controls mail so far as matching addresses to the handling server's IP address. The server has to make the distinction of where to "put" the mail once it gets there. Multihosted domains should already have their MX records set to your server (to make redirects work), so unfortunately that's not a solution.

[mavreela]

Really? I guess that must be a recent change as mail was a concern of mine with multihosted domains and so I'd been reading any thread I could find about it on this forum before asking. I currently have a domain I only use for mail (parked with the registrar and forwarding mail to my Aletia domain) and I would like to have this multihosted but I didn't want to loose the ability to have separate pop boxes for various addresses and wanted to clarify my options before jumping in and finding it isn't what I wanted.

I am most relieved to hear that I can set forwarding on different address as this is even more flexible than the way I suggested.

As for the mx records, the way I was looking at it is that the mail server first looks at the domain name (the way apache does even though several domains may all point to the same ip) when determining what to do with mail. I was assuming it would take the name of the domain receiving the mail (the one specified in the mx record) rather than the treating each message individually and looking at the full address specified in it.

As always you have been a great help, thank you so much.

[orbic1]

Personally, I set up pop boxes on my main domain and point a forwarder from the multihosted domain at that box. It isn't perfect, but it works. For example, if someone sendssomething to me@multihosted.com (which is defined in Cpanel), it gets forwarded to me@maindomain.com.

You don't even need to set up the pop boxes, just a forwarder.
Much easier and less time consuming.

[jason]

If you have an existing emaoil account you want the mail to go to you don't need the POP box, but I was refering to when you want to give someone an email account on a multihosted domain that is separate from any other mailbox they may have.

--Jason