DNS and Your Enlightenhosting hosted Email Domain

Your domain's DNS (Domain Name System) is like a phone book for the internet — it tells other mail servers, email clients, and browsers where to find your services. This article explains the DNS records that relate to email, what they do, and whether you need them.

MX Record — Mail Exchanger

The MX record is the most important email DNS record. It tells other mail servers where to deliver email for your domain.

Example:

yourdomain.com  MX  10  mail.enlightenhosting.com

Without a correct MX record, nobody can send email to your domain. If your email is hosted with us, this record must point to mail.enlightenhosting.com.

SPF Record — Sender Policy Framework

SPF tells other mail servers which servers are authorised to send email on behalf of your domain. It helps prevent spammers from forging your domain in the From address.

Example:

yourdomain.com  TXT  "v=spf1 mx include:_spf.enlightenhosting.com ~all"

Without SPF, email from your domain is more likely to be flagged as spam or rejected by recipients. The ~all at the end means mail from unauthorised servers will be treated with suspicion but not outright rejected.  That's our default, but change it to a -all if you want to be more strict.

DMARC Record — Domain-based Message Authentication

DMARC builds on SPF and DKIM to give receiving mail servers a clear policy for handling emails that fail authentication checks. It also helps protect your domain from being used in phishing attacks.

Example:

_dmarc.yourdomain.com  TXT  "v=DMARC1; p=none"

The p=none policy means receiving servers will take no action on failing mail — it's a monitoring-only setting. This is the recommended starting point. More restrictive policies (p=quarantine or p=reject) can be applied once you are confident all legitimate mail is passing authentication.

DKIM Record — DomainKeys Identified Mail

DKIM adds a cryptographic signature to outgoing emails, allowing receiving servers to verify that the message genuinely came from your domain and hasn't been tampered with in transit.

DKIM requires a TXT record containing a public key, which is generated by your mail server. Contact us if you need your DKIM record set up.  Most clients will not need this.

Example:

default._domainkey.yourdomain.com  TXT  "v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=YOUR_PUBLIC_KEY"

Autodiscover SRV Record — Automatic Email Client Configuration

This record allows Microsoft Outlook to automatically configure itself when a user enters their email address and password — no manual server settings required.

Example:

_autodiscover._tcp.yourdomain.com  SRV  0 0 443 autodiscover.enlightenhosting.com

This record is optional but recommended. Without it, Outlook users will need to enter their server settings manually. Other email clients (Thunderbird, Apple Mail, mobile apps) may configure themselves automatically without this record but milage may vary.

Summary

Do I need to set these up myself?

If your domain's DNS is managed by us and you ask us to set up email, these records will already be either configured correctly, or we can check and fix them for you on request. If your DNS is managed elsewhere (e.g. your domain registrar, Cloudflare, or another provider), you will need to add these records yourself or provide your DNS provider with the values above.  

If you domain is with Enlighten Domains, then you may also be able to edit these yourself via https://accounts.enlightenhosting.com if you have also configured us to be your nameservers.

If you're unsure who manages your DNS, need help with configuring, or have any other queries, just create a support ticket and we'll be able to assist.