Domains¶
Tip
Uberspace is strictly a hosting provider, which is why we don’t offer domain registrations. You can, of course, use any domain that you registered with an external domain provider with your Uberspace account. At the end of this article is a list of some popular domain providers.
Setup¶
In order to use your own domain for mail with your Uberspace, you need to first set it up using our uberspace tool. You can only add fully qualified domain names (FQDNs), wildcard domains are not available.
[isabell@stardust ~]$ uberspace mail domain add isabell.example
The mailserver's configuration has been adapted.
Now you can use the following records for your DNS:
isabell.example. IN MX 0 stardust.uberspace.de.
isabell.example. IN TXT "v=spf1 include:spf.uberspace.de ~all"
uberspace._domainkey.isabell.example. IN TXT "v=DKIM1;t=s;n=core;p=MIICIj...=="
The trailing dot may be skipped, if the interface does not accept it.
[isabell@stardust ~]$
Once you’ve set up your domain using the uberspace mail domain add tool, the tool provides you with the MX and other records that need to be configured in your registrar’s nameserver. Please be aware that the trailing dot in stardust.uberspace.de. is the correct notation of a DNS record to indicate the domains root like here, but you can skip it if the domain hoster UI does not accept it.
You can get the correct DNS records anytime after setup with uberspace records show isabell.example:
[isabell@stardust ~]$ uberspace records show isabell.example
$ORIGIN isabell.example
@ IN MX 0 stardust.uberspace.de.
@ IN TXT "v=spf1 include:spf.uberspace.de ~all"
uberspace._domainkey IN TXT "v=DKIM1;t=s;n=core;p=MIICIj...=="
[isabell@stardust ~]$
Domain validation¶
We will need to validate that the MX DNS record of your domain is really set up to the corresponding host with HOSTNAME.uberspace.de.. The automated check will run normally every 30 seconds to lookup the DNS records of the domains you added to your account. If the correct value is missing this will be shown as an error next to the specific domain listing:
[isabell@stardust ~]$ uberspace mail domain list
example.com DNS INVALID (checked 2021-08-20 12:00)
isabell.uber.space
Until this check has passed successfully, you will not be able to use this domain for receiving mails or to login to your mailbox. After a failed check, this domain will be checked again only after 3 minutes.
Warning
To get the most accurate record value, we check the responsible domain nameserver directly. But nevertheless it can take some minutes for the correct data to show up after you set up the records at your domain hoster. You can check yourself with dig example.com MX +short if the host already gets the correct values.
Note
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a directory used to look up information about a host name. It usually includes at least a so-called A record, which contains the IPv4 address assigned to this host. The AAAA record does the same for IPv6 addresses. If the domain should be able to receive e-mails, a mail exchange server is specified in the MX record.
There are other types of DNS records used to specify various services for this domain. Wikipedia provides a list if you’re curious.
Note
If you want to add or remove an internationalized domain name (IDN), please use the ASCII representation (“punycode”). For example, please use xn--berspace-55a.de instead of überspace.de.
To convert an internationalized domain name to punycode, use the idn command:
[isabell@stardust ~] $ idn überspace.de
xn--berspace-55a.de
If locale inside your uberspace shell is not set correctly, this command can fail with a “could not convert” error message. To fix this, either configure your local terminal to use an UTF-8 locale or call idn like so: LANG=en_US.utf8 idn ....
Removal¶
To remove a domain, use the uberspace tool:
[isabell@stardust ~]$ uberspace mail domain del isabell.example
The server's configuration has been adapted.
Listing¶
If you want to find out which domains are currently set up for the mail server on your Uberspace account, use the uberspace command:
[isabell@stardust ~]$ uberspace mail domain list
isabell.example
isabell.uber.space
This will list all domains and sub-domains currently set up for this account, including the default $USER.uber.space.