Configuring SMTP through Cloudflare
My domain registrar is Cloudflare and my site is hosted through A2 Hosting. My problem is that my email worked fine when A2 Hosting was my domain registrar and web host. Now, neither Thunderbird or Outlook can connect to my server.
My current DNS records for email are:
CNAME mail prismapixel.studio Auto Proxied
MX prismapixel.studio prismapixel.studio 120 0 DNS only
When attempting to set up my email in Thunderbird I get the following message after entering my email and password:
Configuration found for a Microsoft Exchange server
Incoming: IMAP mail.prismapixel.studio SSL
Outgoing: SMTP mail.prismapixel.studio SSL
Username: ****@prismapixel.studio
When I click on Done, it sits there spinning on Checking password... and then says Unable to log in at server. Probably wrong configuration, username or password.
When I check my domain at hardenize.com and click on Mail servers on the left side under Email it shows Test failed under TLS. It also shows that the mail server is operational, STARTTLS is configured as well as DNSSEC. Upon clicking on TLS on the left side it displays this network error for the analysis of the problem:
A network error occurred while we were trying to communicate with a server.
Hostname: dc-2236d9e77805.prismapixel.studio
Error message: java.net.SocketTimeoutException: Read timed out
IP address: 85.187.145.200
Furthermore, it shows that Email Certificates are not implemented or disabled. I do indeed have a certificate installed and verified through my cPanel.
I tried another tool, checktls.com and the results display the following message for my certificate:
Cert Hostname DOES NOT VERIFY (dc-2236d9e77805.prismapixel.studio != *.supercp.com | DNS:*.supercp.com | DNS:supercp.com)
(see RFC-2818 section 3.1 paragraph 4 for info on wildcard ("*") matching)
So email is encrypted but the host is not verified
I am at a loss and have been trying to fix this for the past 3 days to no avail. Any help would be much appreciated.
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I am now receiving and sending mail. I made the following changes to my DNS records:
- Removed the CNAME record.
- Changed the MX record to:
MX prismapixel.studio mail.prismapixel.studio 120 0 DNS only- Copied the URL from the PTR record.
- Found the IP of the URL.
- Created an A record with the IP of that URL:
A mail 68.66.224.44 Auto DNS only
hardenize.com is still showing a java.net.SocketTimeoutException but I believe that is on their end as checktls.com shows everything as good.
There are a few things that don't make sense. First:
CNAME mail prismapixel.studio Auto Proxied
This means that mail.prismapixel.studio is a CNAME to prismapixel.studio. However, prismapixel.studio returns three A records, all hosted at Cloudflare. You've stated that Cloudflare does not host your email (naturally, since they're not a mail host). You mention:
My mail is hosted with a2hosting.com.
If you want to use the hostname mail.prismapixel.studio as a means of accessing your mail, you need to point that DNS record to whatever server at a2hosting is hosting your mail.
Furthermore, your MX record is pointing to prismapixel.studio. However, as we now already know, prismapixel.studio returns three A records, all hosted at Cloudflare.
Thus you must find the hostname of the mail server that you've been assigned at a2hosting.com for receiving email (it could be the same as the server that you use to retrieve mail), and then make that hostname the answer for your prismapixel.studio's MX record.
These two things are the causes of the problems you're seeing with your mail client (as well as receiving mail).