Setting up email autodiscover / autoconfig for a website with email hosted on google apps/gmail

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timmmay

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#169718 23-Mar-2015 21:17

I have a domain (let's call it example.com) that hosts web and email from the server, using cpanel. I've moved the email from that server to Google Apps.

When I create a new account in Thunderbird it uses the server part of the email address to look up the server. One way it could do it is to find the IP of the server hosting the main A record, then do an nslookup to get the server name. However there are two DNS records, autoconfig and autoconfiguration, both of them point to the server's IP. However even after changing those records to point to Google Apps (and waiting more than the DNS TTL) Thunderbird won't point autoconfig at Google apps.

I've found one article here (which refers to here) but it involves getting SSL certificates. If I go the subdomain it describes on one of my websites

http://autodiscover.headphonereviews.org

It directs to

https://cpanelemaildiscovery.cpanel.net/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml

which turns out to be a "not found" error.

However when I go to

http://autoconfig.headphonereviews.org/

I get an XML document which seems to define how to collect email. Progress! However when I created a subdomain autoconfig.example.com it wouldn't resolve (though I only waited a few minutes). I'll wait until tomorrow to see if DNS resolves.

This started out as a question but it turned into research... suggestions are more than welcome!

Delphinus

611 posts

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#1266466 24-Mar-2015 09:45

I assume you just want IMAP settings pushed out? This is what I use:

This should be available at http://autoconfig.example.com/mail/config-v1.1.xml (eg you might need to put it in a folder called mail or use rewrite rules).


<?xml version="1.0"?>
<clientConfig version="1.1">
    <emailProvider id="%EMAILDOMAIN%">
  <domain>%EMAILDOMAIN%</domain>
          <incomingServer type="imap">
          <hostname>imap.gmail.com</hostname>
          <port>993</port>
          <socketType>SSL</socketType>
          <authentication>password-cleartext</authentication>
          <username>%EMAILADDRESS%</username>
        </incomingServer>
        <incomingServer type="pop3">
          <hostname>pop.gmail.com</hostname>
          <port>995</port>
          <socketType>SSL</socketType>
          <authentication>password-cleartext</authentication>
          <username>%EMAILADDRESS%</username>
        </incomingServer>
        <outgoingServer type="smtp">
          <hostname>smtp.gmail.com</hostname>
          <port>465</port>
          <socketType>SSL</socketType>
          <authentication>password-cleartext</authentication>
          <username>%EMAILADDRESS%</username>
        </outgoingServer>

    </emailProvider>

</clientConfig>

timmmay

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#1266485 24-Mar-2015 09:58

Thanks Del - that's almost what I came up with at the end of my post. Now I just have to get the subdomain to resolve... I added it 13 hours ago, maybe DNS hasn't propagated yet, or maybe it's something else. I've asked my host tech support to have a look.