Dead server prevent reciept of all email

[lt8480]

The server my website is presently hosted on has completely failed and the hosting company are taking ages to restore from a backup to a new server - in the meantime I'm unable to recieve any email whatsoever.

My setup is as follows:

Domain has namerserver 1 and 2 set to the server (which is presently down).

MX records were set through WHM on the server, these pointed mail to Google Apps for Business.

As the server is down and thus completely missing the MX records basically don't exist and thus no mail ends up in Gmail (Google Apps for Business).

I was wondering... is there anyway to set MX records or point mail to Gmail directly at the domain level without having to go through the server and thus wait for the server to come back online?

I must admit I only know the basics of how to set the above up - my logic says it should be possible for example to set a third nameserver so if the first two namerservers are "missing" mail still ends up at Gmail?

[lt8480]

I've set my Namerservers to my domain registras "default" which seems to let me create MX records - hopefully this will fix the issue in the next 30 mins.

[primexx]

yup, that's the idea. sounds like your host's DNS servers died too. by setting your registrar's NS settings to default you switched back to their nameservers, which can then serve the records.

maybe time to find another host btw.

[lt8480]

Thanks,

Think I've been very unfortunate with the death of the server. Being hosted with them maybe 10 years and no problems till now.

Looking at their tech support forums which has a "sever status" section of their 1000+ servers it looks like mine is the only one that has ever had any serious issue - doh.

New server now running - hurray!

Seems like logically it would make sense to have the ability to set my domains namerservers to my host, whilst also having mx records set at the registrar. The current configuration adds another layer of hardware into the sequence that seems somewhat unnecessary.

[primexx]

no it doesn't make sense. the nameserver is the one that tells people what all the records on your domain are. what you want to do would essentially create 2 tiers of name servers, one that only has some records, and another, second one that has more records. that's unnecessarily complicated.

also, you're not adding another layer of hardware. the record of where the nameserver itself is, isn't hosted by your registrar, by by the people that run your domain's TLD. the registrar's interface is only used to let you update your records. the difference between chosing "default" versus choosing your host at your registrar's control panel just changes whether that points to your registrar's servers or your host's servers.

(this is kind of a poor explanation but hopefully gets the gist across)