To set up an email and manage the records, the first step is to procure a domain name. A lot of companies that offer domain names also offer mail services or similar features. Alternatively, the DNS records can be changed to suit the needs of the project, such as pointing towards another mail server, or a website.
We will be providing 2 options to allow mail services within our network.
The first is an independent third-party mail hosting service, this is managed from a ‘dot Tech Domain’ (.tech). The second alternative will be Gmail through Google Workspace, as we will be using this for shared drives and a collaborative workspace anyway.
Google Workspace is great, and would be the best option, but there is an issue with this that is a common theme with our assessments. We have been asked to design a ‘business level network’, yet we are poor students who do not want to spend a cent on an assessment. Thus ‘what would be done’ in a real business, and ‘what WE can do’ are very different things. Workspace was recommended by our first tutor, yet it only has a 14-day trial, after that, it is roughly $10 per user for basic features.
This would be perfectly doable for a real business, yet for us, this is impossible. So we will have our .Tech email, and closer to the demonstration date (on the 28th) we will do what we can with the Google Workspace within the 14-day trial time limit.
With our GitHub Education — Student Developer Pack, we are offered 3 different domain name providers, these being Name.com, Namecheap, and dot Tech. I have chosen to use the dot Tech domain. This offers a free domain name for 1 year, and includes 2 email accounts with a free email service.
We have set up the Domain name, created the email accounts, and set up the relevant DNS records. The process involved will be detailed below. Our domain name: therefortravel.tech
Upon creating the email accounts, the non-SSL and SSL ports are shown. These can be configured in Thunderbird on our Linux devices to have email service directly on the machine.
POP3, called the ‘Post office protocol 3' uses port 110. This is used to retrieve messages from a mail server. The secure version over SSL/TLS uses port 995. POP is older, and transfers/downloads the emails from the server to your local computer.
IMAP, the Internet Message Access Protocol uses port 143. IMAP over SSL/TLS uses port 993. IMAP is more advanced than POP in that mail remains on the server, and devices access the server/mail through a mail service, messages can be read from multiple devices, and as emails remains on the server and not the local machine, it uses less of your PC’s resources.
SMTP is the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, this uses port 25 (587 for the secure version) and where the other protocols are for receiving mail, SMTP is the protocol that SENDS mail.
Thunderbird and other messaging software can be used with these ports/protocols and records. However there is a better alternative. The domain also allows you to set up a webmail, which allows any of the businesses users to access the email account through their browsers at webmail.therefortravel.tech. dot tech offers 2 free emails, so we have created 1 for the Christchurch branch, and 1 for the Nelson branch. Again, in a real business scenario, every user/worker would have their own email, but we as students don’t have the means to achieve this. 1 for each branch will suffice, as it offers the mail functionality required.
These emails both have their own webmail accounts. These would be used by the Christchurch and Nelson workers respectively.
Setting up the DNS records
MX Records
The DKIM record provides an encryption key and digital signature that verifies that an email message was not forged or altered.
SPF record: A redirect is a pointer to another domain name that hosts an SPF policy, it allows for multiple domains to share the same SPF policy. It is useful when working with a large amount of domains that share the same email infrastructure.
Making sure that the service is working:
Test emails have been sent and received through the webmail browser.
