Bulk Email Guide: DNS Records

Now it's time to set DNS records for the domain we'll use on our Main Server in our Bulk Email Network. For the sake of this guide, we are using CloudFlare, but you can use any other DNS hosting.

To refresh your memory, the main server is the server where your Email Marketing Software (EMS) is installed (Mumara, Interspire Email Marketer, MailWizz, Mautic, ...). Then we also have MTA servers where PowerMTA is installed. These servers are doing all the sending. This is just one layer of protection to keep your MTA servers away from your Main server. In case there is ever a problem your main server will never be taken down since it's not doing any sending at all. MTA server can be any budget VPS with at least 1GB RAM and you can add as many as you want. Your main server should be a more powerful VPS (16GB RAM recommended).

Our Main server is up and running but for now, it only has A and AAAA records (if you have IPv6) set. Take a look at the table below and set your DNS records accordingly.

Since this server isn't doing any sending at all there is no need to set DKIM keys, but if you want you can do it from control panel.

• First, log in to the control panel as root
• Go to "Email > Mail Server Manager" and check boxes like in the picture below. If you don't want an Antivirus and rDNS checker just select "Installs DKIM & SPF, enable DKIM for New Accounts and Domains" and make sure your hostname and domain are correct. These are the correct formats:
• Hostname - hostname.example.com
• Domain - example.com
• When everything looks fine, click on "Rebuild Mail Server". It will take a few minutes to complete.
• Now go to "Email > DKIM Manager" and click on "Edit Records" for your main domain.
• Search for "default._domainkey" and copy/paste it to your Cloudflare account like  this

TYPE	NAME	VALUE
TXT	default._domainkey	v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=YOUR_KEY

All emails you send from your Main server will now be signed with this DKIM key.

If you want to add email accounts on your main domain go to "Email > Add Email Account" and follow the instructions there. It's really simple.

The next step is to Install Email Marketing Software. You can use any email marketing application you want Interspire Email Marketer, MailWizz, Mautic, ... I do however suggest Mumara for its easy and full integration with PowerMTA. This is something that none of the other email marketing applications have. In the long run, it will save you time and money when you will set up more MTA servers. Mumara also has some unique features and some you will only find with other EMS only if you use expensive add-ons (looking at Maborak).

Having problems?
Please use the comments below for your questions. This way other users can benefit from provided answers. Please read this first!

This tutorial is a part of the complete Do It Yourself Bulk Email Server Guide. If you are interested in starting with email marketing or want to improve your delivery, open, and click rates I recommend that you follow it from the beginning. Almost 15 years in this business and many, many tests show that this is the best long-run solution for every mass email sender with a double opt-in, scraped, or bought list.

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