cPanel (both shared and on servers) lets you host a website and email for your domain names. To establish the connection between the domain name and your cPanel account, you need to change the domain name’s DNS. For details on DNS, follow the previous Hosting Column post What is DNS (Domain Name System)?
- For shared hosting, websites with domains in the same account as their hosting, these settings are automatically configured.
- For other hosting, you will need to configure this DNS wherever your domain name is registered. DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to take effect across the Internet.
Mandatory Records
| Record Type | Host | Points to |
|---|---|---|
| A (Host) | @ | Your account’s IP address |
| A (Host) | Your account’s IP address | |
| CNAME | www | @ |
| MX (Mail Exchanger) | @ | mail.[your domain name], for example mail.coolexample.com NOTE: Use MX Priority 0 |
Warning: You must delete any other MX (Mail Exchanger) entries in the DNS zone file for your email to work. The MX entry listed above should be the only MX entry.
If you have your cPanel site set up on a subdomain (e.g. cpanel.coolexample.com), replace each instance of “@” with your subdomain and use the domain name including the subdomain in the MX record.
Optional Records
You do not need to add all of these records to your zone file, but doing so will make certain functions work, such as Autodiscovery through Outlook.
| Record Type | Host | Points to/Value |
|---|---|---|
| A (Host) | admin | Your account’s IP address |
| CNAME | autoconfig | @ |
| CNAME | autoconfig.admin | @ |
| CNAME | autodiscover | @ |
| CNAME | autodiscover.admin | @ |
| CNAME | cpanel | @ |
| CNAME | ftp | @ |
| CNAME | webdisk | @ |
| CNAME | webdisk.admin | @ |
| CNAME | webmail | @ |
| CNAME | whm | @ |
| CNAME | www.admin | @ |
| TXT | @ | v=spf1 a mx ptr include:secureserver.net -all NOTE: This record applies only to cPanel shared hosting accounts. |
| TXT | admin | v=spf1 a mx ptr include:secureserver.net -all NOTE: This record applies only to cPanel shared hosting accounts. |
Note: Only use the TXT records listed above if your domain is using cPanel email. If you have these TXT records, and you use another email provider with your domain, you may have problems sending email.
| Record Type | Service | Protocol | Name | Priority | Weight | Port | Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SRV | _autodiscover | _tcp | @ | 0 | 0 | 443 | cpanelemaildiscovery.cpanel.net |
| SRV | _autodiscover | _tcp | admin | 0 | 0 | 443 | cpanelemaildiscovery.cpanel.net |
You can also remove the following DNS entries:
| CNAME Records |
|---|
| imap |
| pop |
| smtp |
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