Backup Email How-To

This tutorial refers to Fastmail.fm. It is not necessary to use Fastmail as one’s email provider to use the tutorial (but Fastmail is wonderful--we recommend it!). If you use a different primary email provider, substitute the name of your email provider for all references to Fastmail.

Occasional outages at Fastmail have prompted a number of discussion threads about ways to create a backup system. I was thinking along thoselines before the outages occurred (not because I was concerned about the loss of services at Fastmail, but because I was interested in creating a backup mail system for mail processed through my personal domain (the mail for the domain is not processed at Fastmail).

The various ideas given on the Fastmail discussion forum have been quite helpful to me in understanding how mail works and how the email processing system interacts with DNS. Some of the solutions posted at the forum are quite elegant, as well as quite complex. Based on what I’ve learned there and elsewhere, I thought I would put together in one place a reasonably detailed, step-by-step description of one way to accomplish backup email. Clearly, my solution will not work for everybody, but it will work for some, at least.

I welcome comments, both on the solution itself, as well as on the clarity of the explanation.

Resources:
http://network-tools.com/nslook/ is a place you can look up what your DNS records look like before you start this. In particular, you need to know the priority number of your primary MX entry. Instructions can be found at http://brokendomain.com/ (this website is external to network-tools.com but refers to network-tools.com in the reasonably detailed explanation of how to lookup DNS and MX records). Here is a picture of what correctly formed DNS entries would look like, after backup email and secondary/slave DNS has been established.

Note:
I refer below several times to zoneedit.com. I am NOT recommending them. I just use them and they work for me. There are other such services, both free and paid. Note that in order to use zoneedit for this solution, they MUST be set up for secondary/slave DNS; this backup solution will not work if zoneedit is set up for primary DNS (for the technically inclined, this is because zoneedit will not permit one to create MX records and mail forwarding simultaneously). And note that one cannot set up zoneedit for secondary/slave unless the provider of the primary DNS services allows “zone transfers”, i.e., permits a secondary/slave DNS provider to transfer the DNS records from the primary provider.

Who the solution is for:
This solution will provide backup email capabilities for those who own their own personal domain. Optionally, it will provide a backup DNS service as well. The latter can be helpful, but not required.

1. This solution will not work for those who use a Fastmail-owned domain for their email address. The reason this is so is that in order to provide backup email, one needs to be able to have access to the MX records for the domain. Obviously, none of us have access to the MX records for the Fastmail domains.
2. Those that REALLY, REALLY want a more robust email backup system may want to pay an outfit (there are many, including zoneedit) for a “store and forward” service.

1. A personally-owned domain through which you wish to receive email.
2. A provider (it can be your own server, though this is not necessary) through which email addressed to your personally-owned domain is processed. It does not matter whether the primary mail server for this domain is at a web host, at Fastmail, or somewhere else.
3. A second provider through which email addressed to your personally-owned domain can be processed.
4. An email address/account you can use for backup purposes, one which lies outside of the domain for which you wish to create a backup solution (this is VERY important!).
5. The ability to manage DNS entries for your domain, typically at your registrar (but some people manage their DNS elsewhere). You must be able to create MX records.

1. The domain for which you wish to create a backup email system will be referred to as domain.tld.
2. The backup email address at which you wish to receive email when mail sent to domain.tld is not functioning will be referred to as addr@backupemail.tld.

Costs involved:
This particular solution need not involve any costs beyond what you are already paying for your current email set up, unless your requirements go beyond what a service such as zoneedit will provide for free.

1. Find a second provider that will allow you to process email sent to addresses at domain.tld. One such provider that has this service for free (with some limitations) is zoneedit. Sign up for an account for the domain you wish to create a backup email solution for.
2. At this second provider (such as zoneedit), create a catch-all email forwarder that points to addr@backupemail.tld. By doing this, all email sent to anyone@domain.tld will be forwarded to the backup address when your primary email provider is down. Of course, none of the nice sorting facilities (via Rules) at Fastmail will be available. Optionally, if you’re paranoid, set up a second catch-all email forwarder that points to yet another external address. Then copies of your emails will go to two places in case your primary mail server is down!
3. Use tools (some are referenced above) to find your current authoritative nameservers and query them to see what your current (primary) MX records are. Record the “priority number.”
4. Go to wherever you need to go to manage your DNS entries (either your domain registrar or the provider of your DNS services). You will now need to create and additional MX entry for domain.tld that points to the mail server at the provider of the backup email service. Use a priority number that is HIGHER than the priority used at the primary mail server for your domain. (See the correctly formed DNS entries).

1. Find a provider that will provide secondary, or slave, DNS services. Zoneedit is one such provider. At that provider, set up to secondary DNS services for your domain.
2. Go to the provider that provides primary DNS services for your domain and add the name servers of your secondary DNS provider to the list of names servers for your domain. THIS IS IMPORTANT! If you don’t do this, you don’t have secondary DNS!

You can find a set of images showing the set up at zoneedit for both backup email forwarding and secondary/slave DNS here.

Comments about this tutorial can be added to the Fastmail forum discussion thread at this link. (Only registered members of the discussion forum can post).