Support email split routing

[tamayers]

I am trying to figure out if I can disable internal routing for emails on certain domains.

We have split-rounting enabled with Google Workspace. I am able to receive emails just fine, but when I go to send an email to a mailbox on the same domain, I am getting a failure as it appears that cloudron is trying to find the mailbox internal to Cloudron vs. going out to the internet. Outbound email works fine for when sending to mailboxes not located within Cloudron. Is there a way to disable local mail routing?

[girish]

What is split routing ? Not sure I understand the setup. If Cloudron mail server is receiving emails for the domain, why should it go out to the internet for internal emails ? In fact, there is specific logic to make sure it doesn't go out.

[tamayers]

@girish Split routing allows for multiple email providers for a single domain. A reason for this (such as my use case) is that you might have inboxes for employees using Google Workplace, Microsoft Exchange, or Cloudron email for user account and then support inboxes for customer inquires or sales that you do not want handled on the same system.

More info on split routing: https://luxsci.com/blog/split-domain-routing-getting-email-for-your-domain-at-two-providers.html#:~:text=Split Domain Routing (SDR) is,addresses in the same domain.

In cPanel, you can change the setting to disable the "checks" to the local mail exchanger on a domain level. This allows cPanel to support split routing and other similar use cases. It would be nice to be able to do the same with Cloudron's email.

cPanel example: https://docs.cpanel.net/cpanel/email/email-routing/

If you enable "remote mail exchanger" on cPanel, it will force the MX lookup externally, even if the MX records simply point back to the same cPanel instance.

[girish]

@tamayers Ah, I understand the use case now. I will move this to Feature Request. It looks easy enough to add since we just need to disable the internal MX check.

[tamayers]

Hey @girish - Any way to slip this quick feature into a release?

[gobenizzle]

+1 for the feature.
Would be very, very helpful for us to have as well!

[gobenizzle]

@girish any news on the development status?
Would appreciate an update

[girish]

@gobenizzle Not implemented yet.

Just re-reading this thread again. Does this mean the "split" routing itself happens using some external software? What software is that? I guess I am trying to figure how to create a setup to test this.

[gobenizzle]

@girish sorry for the delayed reply.

In my case and as I understand in OPs case, the split-routing would happen on google workspace.
Hence the feature would only necessitate, that the local routing can be disabled. Meaning all emails are delivered to the remote mail exchanger (in this case google workspace) and then in google workspace the mails cab be re-routed based on the specific email adresses.
This allows to have both email accounts a gmail and email accounts using cloudron, sharing the same domain.

Does this make sense?

[girish]

@gobenizzle said in Support email split routing:

Hence the feature would only necessitate, that the local routing can be disabled. Meaning all emails are delivered to the remote mail exchanger (in this case google workspace) and then in google workspace the mails cab be re-routed based on the specific email adresses.

Since, Google Workspace and Cloudron share the same domain, how does one configure Google Workspace to deliver email to Cloudron ? By IP address?

I understand if the domain is not shared, in which case, it is just mail forwarding. That already works without this split routing concept.

[gobenizzle]

@girish
exactly.
In google workspace one can define external hosts either by IP adress or by domain.
So in this case I would add the host-name of the cloudon mail sever ( e.g. mail.cloudron.test:587).
The MX record of the domain would point to google.

Now for all email adresses which I would like to keep in cloudron I would add the rerouting option to the cloudron mailsever host.

Note: This already works. I tested it.
The problem is that if I then send a mail from an email-adress hosted at the cloudron instance to email adress hosted on google but on the same domain it runs into delivery problems. I suppose this is because cloudron tries to internally deliver the emails.
So I would hope for an option that disables the internal email routing, so that every email is sent to the sever sepcified in the MX record.

This is why OP asks for the ability to "disable internal routing for emails on certain domains".
This option would really help massively

[gobenizzle]

@girish is there an update by any chance?

[girish]

@gobenizzle unfortunately, no. I was just re-reading this thread. What is your use case for this (sorry, if I missed this).

@tamayers you said use case is "A reason for this (such as my use case) is that you might have inboxes for employees using Google Workplace, Microsoft Exchange, or Cloudron email for user account and then support inboxes for customer inquires or sales that you do not want handled on the same system." I am not sure why this is done, is this to save money because exchange/workspace charges per mailbox?