United States Server DNS Settings

This support guide explains how to set up your domain name to connect to your Rocketspark website.

It is important that you understand the settings that you are changing and we recommend that you first read this guide - Can I manage my own domain name with Rocketspark? What settings do I use? This will help you gain a better understanding of these settings

Quick Reference DNS settings to get your website live. Please read on for instructions.

Please Note: When entering the @ symbol, please either enter @ OR yourdomain.com as the @ symbol will automatically bring your domain name to replace it.

Quick Reference DNS settings to get your website & Rocketspark Emails live. 
Please read on for instructions.

Note: Some registrars require there to be a trailing full stop at the end of certain records (e.g. us.rocketspark.com.). This will have no effect as long as the rest of the record is correct.

Please make sure you have the correct support guide.  This guide should only be used if you have decided to manage your domain name with Rocketspark and your website is being hosted on our US server.

If you’re not sure where you are being hosted, login to your Dashboard then click My Account, scroll down and your Website Hosting Location is labelled here.

If you are not being hosted on our US server, you’ll need to use one of the other support guides:

New Zealand DNS Settings
United Kingdom DNS Settings
Australia DNS Settings

Upgraded your account yet?

If you are reading this guide, you have most likely already upgraded your Rocketspark account.  If you have upgraded, great! Hop down to the next step. If you haven’t, please continue reading.

If you haven’t upgraded, you’ll need to log in to your website Dashboard and click the big red ‘Upgrade Now’ button and follow the prompts.  Once this is done, you can proceed to the next step and change your DNS records if you’ve chosen to manage your domain yourself.

What settings need to be changed on my domain so that it’s pointing to my new website?

Two things:

1. Change your A Record
2. Add a CNAME to your domain​

The A Record points your domain to our server so that your new website can be viewed.

The CNAME will make sure that you can be found at your www.yourdomain.com domain.

Self-managing emails - for experts only:

Please note, that changing the MX records below will change where your emails are being sent to. If you are hosting the email accounts with your current/existing provider, you should not change the MX records.

What if I have email accounts on my domain?

If you have email accounts on your domain and you wish to leave your email accounts with your current email provider, you do not need to make any changes to your MX records.  

Please note, that changing the MX records below will change where your emails are being sent to. If you are hosting the email accounts with your current/existing provider, you should not change the MX records.

 If Rocketspark is providing your email accounts, please go to the next section('Setting up your domain for Rocketspark email accounts - MX Records') 

If you currently don't have any MX records set up on your domain, then this means that your current email traffic will fall back to sending to the A record set for your domain name as a default.

If this is how your DNS settings on your domain are currently set up when you change the A record to point to Rocketspark’s IP address for your website traffic,  your emails will stop working as your emails will be inadvertently sent to Rocketspark by mistake.  

To work around this, you must set up a new A record for your email traffic, like you have done above for the website.

1. Set up a new A record to point to the IP address of your existing provider. This will look something like this:

   Example: mail.mydomain.com A (123.1.12.12)  This IP address needs to be set to your current website's A record for your old website.  

   If you're not sure what your old email/website provider's IP address is, you'll need to touch base with your current email provider for help.  

   Commonly this would be something like mail.mydomain.com, but you can use any subdomain of your choosing. We just need an A record setup to use in the next step to create your new MX records.

2. Once you have done this you can then set up an MX record to divert your email traffic to the current provider independent of the website traffic.

   mydomain.com MX 10 mail.mydomain.com (as an example of what your MX records may look like)

   Or alternatively, if you're not sure what your email providers' MX records are, you'll need to touch base with your current email provider for help.
   
   

Setting up your domain for Rocketspark email accounts - MX Records

If Rocketspark is providing your email accounts you need to configure your domain to point your domain’s MX records to our email service.

Please note, that changing the MX records below will change where your emails are being sent to.

If you are hosting the email accounts yourself you should not change the MX records.

The TXT record is optional but is recommended for improved email deliverability. This record should only be set if you are hosting emails with Rocketspark.

Dependent on your domain provider, you might need to enter a '@' rather than your full domain name.

What if I have more than one domain that I wish to manage myself?

If you are wanting to add an additional domain name to your website please follow our guides to either register a new domain name or transfer/self-manage and existing domain.

Okay, now that I have the settings, how do I change my domain settings? 

You have two options from here. You can do this yourself if you feel confident technically or you can give these settings to your domain provider to set these up for you.  Just contact the support team at your domain provider for assistance. Most domain providers will have their own help guides on how to make changes.

Or, you can refer to our  'How to' support guides for specific domain providers:  

• 1and1
• 1stDomains
• GoDaddy
• Fast Hosts
• Discount Domains
• FreeParking
• Crazy Domains
• 123-Reg
• NetRegistry
• Names.co.uk
• Melbourneit.com.au
• Domains4Less