Can I Set Up Email Addresses with My Domain Without Purchasing Web Hosting?

[DaveC426913]

Just need a quick clarifier.

If I purchase a domain name, and I have any ISP that gives me an email address, is that all I need to be able to establish an email address (by aliasing I presume) with my new domain ?

Example:
1] I'm paying $9.95 for dial-up service on cheapoISP.com, so my current email address is dave[at]cheapo.com.
2] I purchase the domain giganticbrain.com because I want a permanent email address of dave[at]giganticbrain.com, independent of my current service provider.

So my question is: do ALL ISPs (including cheapoISP.com) allow me to redirect emails sent to dave[at]giganticbrain.com to dave[at]cheapo.com? Can I take this for granted, or do I have to check with cheapoISP.com?

What do I check for on my ISP to see if they allow this?

 

[DaveC426913]

Waitaminnit.

I simply point my domain giganticbrain.com at my cheapoISP.com server, don't I? Doh.

So, the question becomes:
Do ALL ISPs (even the cheap services, where you only get a single email
address with your package) allow aliasing of an email address?

 

[Anttech]

You need what is called an MX (Mail Exchange) record to point to your email server. Albeit your own or one hosted by an ISP. The people who you bought the Domain name from are they people you need to check with, because they will be the ones admining the Root DNS entries for your domain...

You could get them to use an Alias and point the MX record to dave[at]cheapo.com, if they arent already offering an Email service with the domain name.

Basically there is no easy answer to your question, so I thought it best to give you a technical explanation of how it works, so you can figure out the solution to your dilemma

 

[-Job-]

You should check with your domain name registar. I believe most allow you to do redirects (for a small fee). You can do it for free with some work. You would:
. buy your domain, mydomain.com from MyRegistrar
. sign up with a service like www.zoneedit.com
. take the nameservers ZoneEdit gives you and specify them at MyRegistrar for your domain
. Create an MX or Alias Record at ZoneEdit, to redirect your email.

Alternatively, you can set up a NameServer and use that, but it's that much more complicated and less reliable.

 

[DaveC426913]

The people who you bought the Domain name from are they people you need to check with, because they will be the ones admining the Root DNS entries for your domain...

This would be EasyDNS.

 

[DaveC426913]

Ok, let me try this again, now that I've got more details.

I've got dialup service with my ISP idirect.ca (Look.ca).
I've bought a domain davesdomain.ca.

I want to know the following:

1] I know I can have idirect.ca receive email from davesdomain.ca. Can I use idirect.ca to send email as if from davesdomain.ca?


I now want to cancel my service with idirect.ca. I'll buy service from pathcom.com, my new service provider, but I can't cancel my idirect account, or all my emails coming to idirect will be lost. I'll have to keep idirect until I'm satisfied all my friends and clients are switched over.

2] Can I arrange it for idirect to forward my emails to davesdomain.ca, which I will then be able to pick up by way of my pathcom.com account?


Note that, with a dialup account, I can only dial up one ISP, I cannot check two accounts with the same connection. This is why I want to forward one to the other.

 

[Anttech]

1] I know I can have idirect.ca receive email from davesdomain.ca. Can I use idirect.ca to send email as if from davesdomain.ca?

Yes you can. The email will come from idrect.ca, but the reply-to will be davesdomain.ca. So the user at the other side will think its from davesdomain.ca unless he digs deeper into the email headers etc.

2] Can I arrange it for idirect to forward my emails to davesdomain.ca, which I will then be able to pick up by way of my pathcom.com account?

This isn't clear, your dialup account is irrelevant to what email server you connect to check your emails, unless you are using ppp directly to your email server which I highly doubt. So I guess the answer to your question is yes (If I understood you), you can connect to davesdomain.ca and get your emails regardless of which Dialup ISP you use.

 

[-Job-]

1. You might be able to specify the reply address as your davesdomain.ca. So all emails sent by you@idirect.ca would be associated with you@davesdomain.ca

2. Whatever client you use to get the email might already allow you to do this.

I think what you want is to setup a clean email account with davesdomain.ca, then setup a forwarding from idirect to your new email.
The easiest way to do that would be to purchase some Hosting with your domain name. Web Hosts throw in some number of email accounts in their packages, so you can have something like 100-500 email accounts @davesdomain.ca. They provide the email servers, the necessary DNS entries & nameservers, and even a Web Based client for accessing email. On top of that you now have a web host where you can put your site, or use for storage, etc.

For example, i have backup web host at Brinkster.com that i use in case my server goes down for a while. It's a cheap, simple account. I get web hosting, whose stats i can't remember, and a bunch of email accounts.
Recently my brother decided to have his site, so after he purchased his domain name, i added the domain to Brinkster and setup an email account, through Brinkster's interface, for him at HisName@HisDomain.com.
Brinkster has its own web based email client which you can login into to check your email. Or you can set up Outlook to work with it for example.

Most web hosts provide you with this functionality, and some of them are really cheap. After you have this setup you setup forwarding from idirect to your new email account.

 

[DaveC426913]

The easiest way to do that would be to purchase some Hosting with your domain name. Web Hosts throw in some number of email accounts in their packages, so you can have something like 100-500 email accounts @davesdomain.ca. They provide the email servers, the necessary DNS entries & nameservers, and even a Web Based client for accessing email. On top of that you now have a web host where you can put your site, or use for storage, etc.

Yeah but I'm trying to avoid buying an additional webhosting service for reasons I won't get into.