Redirecting mail.example.com to http://mail.google.com/a/example.com

Question

A domain name that we have is using google mail as its backend, but its not hosted anywhere (no website). How can I, through the registrar interface (I'm using 1&1), redirect ppl who type in http://mail.example.com to http://mail.google.com/a/example.com ?

I can create a subdomain and set its DNS/CNAME, but what do I put where? Also, if I make this change will it affect the existing mail delivery (for which everything is running fine presently).

Answer 1

It turns out it wasn't that tough... and the instructions are part of Google itself: Dashboard -> Service settings: Email -> General:Web address -> Change URL

https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/example.com/CustomUrl?s=mail

Changing CNAME record

To use the custom URL mail.example.com, you must change the CNAME record with your domain host.

1. Sign in to oneandone.
2. Navigate to your DNS Management page. The location and name of this page will vary by host, but can generally be found in Domain Management or Advanced Settings.

3. Find the CNAME settings and enter the following as the CNAME value or alias:

   mail

4. Set the CNAME destination to the following address:

   ghs.googlehosted.com

5. Save changes with your domain host and click "I've completed these steps" below.

Answer 2

You cannot redirect to a path (such as /a/example.com) using only DNS. DNS CNAME records can make mail.example.com/foo effectively point to mail.google.com/foo, but something more sophisticated will require HTTP redirects. This means you need someone hosting your web page for this to work.

Sorry.

If your registrar offers an "HTTP Redirect" option, you can use that. Some registrars do. If you use this, they're effectively running a minimal web server for you. Note that this may break SSL when users access your page via https://example.com.

Mail delivery is via MX records, which won't be affected by changes to other types of record (so long as you don't interfere with the DNS records for the domain's mail servers).