Migrating email from godaddy to self hosted email server

[crankycowboy]

Hi, I have about 10 email address and 2 domains all hosted through godaddy. I'm in the process of setting up my own email server on my home server. I plan to keep the domains hosted through godaddy, but need to know after I have the email server setup and running...how I go about getting the domains to "point" to my new mail server opposed to the godaddy mail servers? Is it just a matter of editing the mx records or is it more tedious than that? any help is appreciated.

[PL281 · Accepted solution]

@crankycowboy 

Yes it should just be updating the MX records to point to your home IP.

As someone who has done self hosted (at my place of business) mail servers.

A couple of words of caution 

1) You may want to use a spam filtering service where it relays the inbound mail through the 3rd party service - this can help prevent your mail server from being "attacked"

2) Make sure to check with your ISP to know about outbound emails depending on your mail server / setup - it is possible all the outbound mail will go out as your account 

3) Look into a reverse lookup on the IP address for your network as this can help with spam blockers and if you setup an SPF record to say that it is you.

[crankycowboy]

PL281,

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain all of that. A couple more questions. I understand everythign you are saying below except for #3 (technically, I actually understand but don't know how to do that outside of windows server), running hmailserver on windows 10. Any advise?

And when I'm editing DNS records, can I use a my "no-ip" dynamic DNS name to point to my server opposed to the IP address itself?  Thank you again for all your time and help.

[PL281]

@crankycowboy 

Yes the no-ip will work perfectly - the Reverse DNS is actually done at the ISP level not the server level - if you google for RNDS lookup and put in your network ip it should return some name if it does you are all set

[crankycowboy]

PL281, thanks again. You are going to hate me, but i'm really lost with the reverse lookup config and where that needs to be done. I've tested everything else on mxtools and everything seems to be working (spf, dmarc, the no-ip, mx records etc. but reverse records reports a error and I don't know where I'm supposed to input/edit that info. Sorry for the hassle, but appreciate you sticking with me.

[PL281]

@crankycowboy 

As I said that is from your Internet Provider - You can't change that yourself - Your internet provider has to do it for you.