Is it possible to have domains hosted by Plusnet and email go to Microsoft 365?

[#1]

I've seen a few threads on this from various dates

Its not clear whether the limitations of the PlusNet DNS system (or its web admin console at least) would allow me to keep 2 custom domains registered/hosted by Plusnet and have just email go to Microsoft 365.

One thread says its not possible, another makes me think it is

Things may have changed on either/both the Microsoft or PlusNet sides since those threads

Anyone know the latest?

[#2]

Do you already have a domain with PN?

[#3]

Hi @TimDSMoss,

Sorry for any confusion. It may be worth attempting to set this up and reporting back with any error messages or issues you run into.

[#4]

Hi, sorry if that wasn't clear!

Yes I already have 2 domains with PlusNet (a .com and .co.uk variants of the same domain).  Have had them like this for about 20 years.

I have a subscription to MS Office Family (for the office aps, OneDrive) and use a separate hotmail account.

All good - all works OK.

However,

Whilst IMAP based email is better than the original SMTP only, 

I'm having issues periodically with a couple of (MS Outlook) clients and iPhone clients.

I'd like to take advantage of some of the features of MS Exchange based email (server side rules, easier integration with my email clients etc.)

But I don't really want to have to transfer the domains out of plusnet, so was hoping to find out if its possible to possible divert just the emails to MS 365 Exchange system before upgrading my MS subscription

[#5]

Thanks @TheMightyAJ 

I was hoping to find out whether its (likely) possible or just not possible before spending extra upgrading from "MS 365 Family" to "MS 365 Business"

If its definitely not possible (without transferring domains out of PlusNet) I may well just leave things as they are..

If I do go for it - I'll definitely report back so that there's up to date info here in case anyone else will find it useful!

[#6]

As far as I'm aware there'd be nothing our stop that'd stop you from doing this.

I've messaged a colleague in our network infrastructure operations team and I'll post back when I know more though.

[#7]

I was right, but there's a caveat.

Microsoft will likely ask you to create a TXT record for validation, but we don't support these in our domain control system.

[#8]

and for the same reason,  I'm not sure you'd be able to setup SPF, DKIM and DMARC using the PlusNet domain control system

[#9]

Just for the avoidance of doubt, do Plusnet provide both hosting and domain registration services for these domains?

I used to have a domain hosted by Plusnet but the name server service was provided elsewhere.  Such allowed DNS records to be established at will, whilst content remained hosted by Plusnet.

Question - exactly what is it that you seek to achieve here?  What aspect of server-side rules do you seek to exploit which cannot be achieved with client side rules?  The only aspect of server-side rules which perform where client side do not, is when the client is not connected.

Personally I have an always connected PC which uses client side OL rules on a variety of IMAP accounts to process mail, auto-respond etc.  Sometimes we get sucked into complex solutions where there are simpler pragmatic approaches available.

I was going to suggest that you simply configured outlook.com to "harvest" your Plusnet emails ... and sought to find you guidance on how to do that ... and stumbled across this ... "Microsoft will be removing the ability to connect new accounts to Outlook.com from May 10, 2021." - not overly helpful of MS!!!

[#10]

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@Townman wrote:

Just for the avoidance of doubt, do Plusnet provide both hosting and domain registration services for these domains?

I used to have a domain hosted by Plusnet but the name server service was provided elsewhere.  Such allowed DNS records to be established at will, whilst content remained hosted by Plusnet.

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I'm not sure about this. Whilst it may have been possible by exception, we don't typically allow any hosting if the name servers of a domain are not ours. The registration used to be fairly agnostic but we've routinely mandated that name servers need to be ours if we're to host anything.

Somewhat a moot point though as it sounds like OP's domain is both registered and hosted with us already.

It looks like you may be able to bypass the TXT requirement by using MX records. Doesn't do anything for the fact that you will be unable to configure DKIM/SPF/DMARC though as rightfully pointed out by @MisterW 

[#11]

Great thank you very much - most appreciated

Tim

[#12]

ah - yes - I think this was this issue that caused one of the previous posters on this topic to say it wasn't possible.

Do you happen to know if TXT records are not supported at all by the PlusNet domain control system?

Or is it the case that they are just not supported in the user/customer domain management web interface?

If the latter would it be possible to get them added via a support request?

Cheers again

Tim

[#13]

Yes true - I also don't believe it would be possible to configure those without TXT records.

Hmmm - something else to consider.

I'm not sure this would be a showstopper for me (most email is incoming) but would be frustrating to move everything over, get it all configured and set up and then find all (or most) outbound email is getting flagged as spam by recipients (or even refused/rejected by systems with strict policies)

Thanks for the input @MisterW 

[#14]

Thanks @Townman 

So for clarity: Plusnet provide both hosting and domain registration for the domains - they're entirely within the Plusnet system.

I want to avoid

- having to have a client always connected (save some energy and not be reliant on said client being connected or working)

- potentially having rules on more than one client trip things up (currently they're client side on a single PC/laptop)

- issues where the clients randomly stop being able to connect at all, delete items, retrieve new ones, continuously prompt for username/password etc.

- issues where folders (e.g. deleted, sent) get duplicated

It would be nice if I could use any client and whichever one I use emails have already had rules applied to them (e.g. junked, moved to various folders etc.)

I thought about getting my Hotmail account to "harvest" / "suck in" the emails from Plusnet but feared it would either not work at all, would partly work but after a load of time trying I'd realise it doesn't quite do the job,  or if I did get it working would end up hitting issues if either PlusNet or Microsoft change things.  Probably not a feature that's used by many folks so I could easily see MS removing it or changing it with little or no warning.

At least you found the warning! 🙂

[#15]

Thanks @bobpullen 

Yes indeed the domains are both registered and hosted by Plusnet

MX record approach sounds like its a possibility

- but yes will be a shame not to be able to configure SPF/DKIM/DMARC but maybe not a showstopper (at least not right now)

I guess I could always at a later date transfer the domains out to a 3rd party registrar service if the above proves to be a big issue.  This would at least be less of a "big bang" switchover.