Know more about localdomains and remotedomains

Services for one domain do not need to be on one server. The site host and email server for a domain do not need to be on the same physical server.

DNS is used to direct the traffic to the correct place, but DNS alone will not get all the bits to where they are supposed to be. Exim, cPanel’s SMTP service needs a little help beyond DNS in order to know how to handle mail that is generated locally.

This is where /etc/localdomains and /etc/remotedomains come into play.

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  How do it works

  
  

Email sent out from a cPanel server, exim has to checks /etc/localdomains and /etc/remotedomains in order to send the email to the correct location.

If the domain is in /etc/localdomains, the mail is routed locally to the machine. If the domain is in /etc/remotedomains, the email is routed out to the Internet.

This is useful if the domain has some software installed that sends email notifications, such as a content management system like WordPress. This ensures that mail will get sent to the correct location.

If domain uses a third party mail server for email and the domain is not in remotedomains, notifcations from the CMS will not be delivered.

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  Setting email option during account creation

  
  

At the bottom of the account creation page in the Webhost Manager.

If Local Mail Exchanger is set, cPanel places the domain in localdomains. If Remote Mail Exchanger is selected, it places the domain in remotedomains. If Backup Mail Exchanger is selected, the domain will be added to localdomains but will only accept mail if there are no other mail servers available.

Automatically Detect Configuration will check the DNS Mail Exchanger records to see where the DNS is pointed, and make the configuration based off of that. Most of the time, this is the best option to select. However, if DNS has not been setup for the domain yet, you may wish to set the Exchanger manually.

Automatically Detect Configuration will check the DNS Mail Exchanger records to see where the DNS is pointed, and make the configuration based off of that. Most of the time, this is the best option to select. However, if DNS has not been setup for the domain yet, you may wish to set the Exchanger manually.