Hi, I have two domains registered with Uk2.net. I use one domain for emails (POP3), and send a bunch of approx 300 once a month for a group I help to run, the other domain is more or less for testing. I have a modest website hosted on my TalkTalk space, which they are discontinuing in a month. The main domain is forwarded to the TalkTalk webspace.
I have setup my website on 000webhost, and parked the test domain, with instant success. I couldn’t have been more pleased. Then I tried to use email, with no luck. The Uk2 control panel says that ‘In order to use Uk2 email services with your external domain name, you must either update the Name Servers (Easiest option) or update your MX records (Advanced option) on your existing account to point to our servers.’ It then suggests that the name servers be set back to Uk2, which sort of defeats the object, or add an MX record, which is already there in the required format. Is that the MX record on the Uk2 domain or on the 000webhost parked domain?
Although I have considerable experience on PC’s I am utterly confused with A, AAAA, CNAME, NS, MX, TXT and SRV records and what they do, and as for email…
If I get email to work (I assume that this is possible) will it be restricted to 000webhost’s 50 sent emails a day? This would be fine for me but not for the group work I do. Thanks.
Thanks, but I’m still struggling with email. I should add that I have mailboxes on my two domains, and I would like to continue to use the xyz@mydomain.co.uk email address.
I naively assumed that I could just park my domain on 0H webhosting and continue with email as usual, in a similar way to the web diversion I currently enjoy. But that doesn’t seem to be possible. I guess I have to grasp that with a parked domain emails go to and from 0H, not directly to the mailbox on the domain - is that so?
Do I need to set up mail forwarding to direct emails back to the Uk2 mailbox?
I’ve read as many tutorials and previous threads as I can find, with no blinding epiphany.as yet.
I’ve just had a look at email redirection. It appears to want me to redirect xyz@mydomain.co.uk to xyz@mydomain.co.uk, which is nonsense, no? How can I get my emails back to my Uk2 mailbox? There’s some concept here that I’m not grasping.
Hi Infinity, and thanks for the response. (It’s kcall.uk I’m using, not kcall.co.uk.) Yes, I have a resolution – I thought of posting it here but this thread hardly seemed to have set the community alight.
My problem (and it was mine) was that I have a mailbox on my domain, kes@kcall.uk and I was trying to reconcile this with the way 0W handles email. I realise now that parked domains send everything to the webhosting site and their mailboxes are irrelevant. 0W doesn’t have mailboxes and forwards domain email to another address. (If the tutorials had said that emails are sent to an address separate from the domain name then that would have saved me many hours of struggle.) So domain email ends up in yet another mailbox, which I don’t want. As for sending emails, I can only see that you have to spoof the domain email address when sending from the ‘third party’ address. The tutorial on this seems obsessed with Gmail, which I’m not, so it wasn’t much help.
In the end I reverted to the method I use with my TalkTalk webspace. I unparked everything, and used my domain’s web diversion to send what few visitors I get to the 0W webspace. I can now use my domain’s email to my heart’s content. It isn’t perfect, as web diversion uses iframe, and you don’t get the correct url in the address bar, but these things are not really noticeable. If you look at kcall.uk you will see it in action, or inaction really (not all the links work yet).
To sum up, I think that 0W webhosting is the best free hosting there is, parking domains is amazing, but emails are sadly not up to scratch.
Of course if I still have it all wrong, and there is a way to use my domain email without all my perceived problems, then please let me know. I would like to use parked domains etc but wrestling with another mailbox is not on.
Many thanks for your answer, I was beginning to feel rather lonely.
MX record should be unchanged on registrar and email continues working
The limited availability of email on 000webhost is mainly down to abusive users in the past but also because email hosting is usually a premium feature and we’ve kept it over at Hostinger.com instead of offering it for free, there are no current plans of email/inbox to come back to 000wh at this current time.
Using external email provider like you are currently doing is the best way to do things in my opinion be it a premium provider, Zoho, GoogleMail for business etc.
Thanks, I will try these options tonight when I have time.
Are you saying that if I choose either option then I will be able to use my domain mailbox as before (POP3 client accessing UK2’s mail servers)? And not have to use 0W email forwarding?
I undid the web diversion, changed the name servers, parked the domain, linked it, and changed the MX record on 0W as in method 1. I can now send and receive email using the domain mailbox exactly as before. Infinity, you’re a genius, and this info should be in a tutorial for us less blessed.
I have one hiccup which I hope will be resolved when I try tomorrow. I cannot access my website from the domain. The right name servers show in the Google test page, and the email obviously gets there and back, but when I enter my domain name I get a UK2 holding page. I am hoping that this is a DNS propogation issue. When I first tried domain parking a week ago the connection was instant, so I’m not really sure what’s going off. I’ll be back later.
Hi. I still have no access to my website. I have:
flushed dns cache
cleared cookies etc
reboted pc
rebooted router after 1 hr off
and no luck. I ran uptrends.com and received all world-wide access OK. I don’t know if it’s TalkTalk’s dns or not. In the 0W control panel if I click on the domain name it gets the same error. Mail’s working fine though.
No, not yet. My reluctance is twofold, firstly that 1.1.1.1 does not get unblemished appraisal everywhere, and secondly that if it works for me, does it mean that everyone on TalkTalk dns will have the same problem as I am currently having?
I must add that I don’t expect everyone on TalkTlalk to visit my site, or even anyone, but a solution that applies to me only doesn’t seem quite right.
PS I think that TT dns is 79.79.79.79/80, if that’s any use.
I’m using Firefox as my main browser. Doesn’t work in IE, and nor in Chrome using Slax distro on DVD. Doesn’t work on spouse’s laptop either (FF).
Flushed cache 10 times, mashed ctl/F5, no luck. I think I’ll have to go with 1.1.1.1 or Google’s dns and come back to this from time to time. Bit of a devil, really. Many thanks for all your invaluable help, especially with sorting the email. Much appreciated.
Well, Glory be. At some time between mid Saturday and this morning, connection was enabled with TalkTalk’s dns (79.79.79.79/80). So now everything is working fine. I think that the TT dns are a little faster than the CF/APNIC dns, so I have reverted to that.
Many thanks to all who answered (after a rather slow start), especially Infinity who was an immense help with email and dns.
