How can I point my domain from Godaddy to another web server without using @ and losing email services?

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I have access to a Godaddy account where the company has all their domains. One of those I need to point to another web server running Apache. The person that used to work here before me solved this pointing to the new server IP using the record:

A        @       the.ip.addr.ess 1 hour

and in the webserver end I get it with Apache and as far as the webserver goes, it runs flawlessly. I even have some subdomains using the same A record structure.

But...now I have two issues. First, I lost email reception. I can send via smtp and webmail but anything sent to my domain gets bounced back after 24 hours, even if sent to an alias or forwarder.

The second issue is that I need to verify the domain with Firebase and even thou I created the TXT record, it cannot be found by Google. I'm sure it's because of the same reason.

What can I do? I understand a little about DNS and records, but not enough for this. I just want all html traffic to reach my webserver as it is now and keep the emails and other domain services working as they were.

As contacting Godaddy support, they said it is not their purview as it is external. I think they just don't know. Go figure.

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robert_longworth On

Are you using GoDaddys NameServers? If not and these are pointing elsewhere no matter what DNS records you set in GoDaddy won't be picked up during DNS lookips. This may explain why the TXT record verification is failing. However if this was true changing the A record wouldn'd disrupt DNS.

@ just means the root domain so no subdomain/prefix, mydomain.com.

www is a common subdomain used so you could have an A record which like: A www the.ip.addr.ess 1 hour

so www.mydomain.com would resolve to the.ip.addr.ess

MX records are used to direct emails to your mail server. Make sure this is pointing to the mail server. If it's pointing at your A record then updating the A record will disrupt this.

Set the MX record to point to the.ip.addr.ess rather then mydomain.com, or an A/CNAME record other then your root domain (which you are updating)

Other considerations may need to be taken, if you have an SPF record (TXT record) this may also need updating, depending on it's current value.

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demoniodojo On

I finally found what I had to do. I needed an A record named 'mail' pointing to the original Godaddy server IP address.

A mail my.ip.add.ress. 1 hour

Thank´s for all the help.