To point your domain to an external server while keeping your email services with Loopia, you can add an A record (DNS record pointing to an IP address) or a CNAME record (alias pointing to another hostname) in the Loopia DNS editor. This guide explains how to edit existing records and how to switch between record types.
You will find the DNS editor in the customer zone by clicking on the relevant domain name and then the blue DNS editor button.
In the DNS editor you will see two subdomains (e.g. blog.example.com) named “@” and “www”. The “@” entry represents the naked domain (the address without “www”, for example example.com), and “www” represents the address with the www prefix (for example www.example.com).
Change the value of an existing DNS record
To switch an existing A record to a different IP address, click on the IP address, edit it, and save. The same works for replacing a CNAME record with a different hostname.
Change the type of record
If you need to replace an A record with a CNAME record (or vice versa), first delete the existing record by clicking the red Delete button to the right of the value.
Then click the blue Add a new record button to the right of the subdomain name and fill in the form using the following guidelines:
- Type: Choose which type of address you want to point to. To connect to an IP address (a number series), set type to “A”. To connect to another hostname (domain name), choose “CNAME” — but only for subdomains (for example test.example.com), not for the main domain (for example example.com). This is because of how DNS rules are specified.
- TTL: Normally enter 3600, or use the same TTL value already set on the other records for the domain or subdomain.
- Data: The address your domain name should point to. This is an IP address if you selected type “A”, or a hostname if you selected type “CNAME”.
Done
Now just wait for the record to propagate. This can take from a few minutes to a few hours depending on the TTL value (the number of seconds) set on the domain or subdomain.
A prerequisite is that Loopia’s name servers (DNS servers) are used for the domain. For details on changing name servers, see change of name servers.