How do I know my incoming mail server and server provider?

Mail server served by different provider than web server

• I have an e-mail address that appears on just about every spammer's list, and I get over 300 spam per day (increasing daily, of course). It's of the form [email protected]. At the moment, the company that serves my web pages (http://www.xxx.com/whatever) is the same one that handles my POP account ([email protected], plus [email protected]). I love their web hosting, but since barter is involved, I have to write to a very overworked fellow who undoubtedly gets even more spam than I do. He overlooked an e-mail I sent him on this topic, and of course I could send it again (and might well do so), but in the meantime I thought I'd figure out my other options. At the moment the account has [email protected] as the primary (real) e-mail account for that domain. All other addresses ([email protected]) go into the same mailbox. Those "whatevers" have coded names that spammers can't guess. And Mail rules put almost all of those into a separate mailbox when I go pick up my mail. The problem is, it takes a LOOOONG time (and obviously soon to increase time) to download all the spam, just to get the 3 to 10 real messages I get every day. I've looked at my domain records and I see that there's an entry which seems to direct e-mail lookups to xxx.com to a particular mail server. My goal is: (1) To not have to bother the fellow who overlooked my previous e-mail... (2) To continue to have my web stuff hosted by them... (3) To DELETE (or undesignate, or something) the main address [email protected] so that all mail to that address is bounced back so it never enters any of my mailboxes... (4) To choose a different address as the main ("real") e-mail account for that domain (maybe something like [email protected])... (5) As now, have all mail addressed to other xxx.com addresses go into the real account ([email protected])... (6) Thus be able to pick up all my e-mail to everything OTHER than [email protected] without having to download (and/or wade through) all the spam heading for [email protected] I am wondering if there is a way to do this by changing the Domain Name entry with the company that registered xxx.com in the first place, but not changing the domain name records with regards to FTP or HTTP. So here are my questions: (A) Is there a way to do this without having to change how my web pages are served? (B) If so, how do I do this? (C) If not, what is the most efficient way to achieve goals 1 through 6? I think someone out there knows the answer to this question off the top of their head, with very little thinking or research required. So I'm looking for a brief answer of the form: No, you can't separate e-mail from web functions, so to achieve your goals you'd have to do X and Y and then Z. Yes, you can separate the two, just change the domain name record for the e-mail servicing to blah blah blah, and get yourself a Linux POP server to run by yourself, and here's one or two websites that explain how to do this. Thanks, everyone!!

• Answer:

  Hello Jimwww Yes, you can separate the two! What you need to do is to alter the MX record of your domain and point this to the new location of your mail server. This can sometimes be done by yourself but I usually get my domain registrar to do this for me. There is a very good tutorial and beginners guide to MX records here: http://www.dyndns.org/support/kb/mxrecords.html Other useful links I would recommend for some additional information are: http://www.jhsoft.com/help/index.html?rec_mx.htm http://tvsecure.net/manual/manual7.html http://www.code-crafters.com/abilitymailserver/tutorial_domaindns.html http://www.gordano.com/kb.htm?q=268 http://www.topology.org/linux/mx.html ://www.google.com/search?q=%22mx+records%22 There are several companies that deal solely with delivering email to a domain name (leaving the web hosting to the rest). The most popular ones I believe are: http://www.mailsnare.net/snare/index.php http://www.fastmail.fm/ You may also find this forum a useful place to discuss ideas with other people: http://www.emailaddresses.com/forum/ They host a very useful and friendly forum on setting up and running an email service and unlike many forums there are some very knowledgeable people running the site. Hopefully these links will be sufficient to answer your question. If they are not please ask for clarification and I will be happy to help you more with any specific queries you have on this subject.