Accessing webmail after domain expires

[cbergy]

Hey hey!

I was just wondering if it's possible to get at Squirrelmail or Horde even if your domain has expired. Currently, my client is in the process of renewing and possibly transferring registrar's, but I would still like to offer him the service of getting at his email on his hosting package.

At this point in time, is this possible?

cheers!

[Matt]

http://<server name>.apisnetworks.com/webmail/ ought to work the magic for SquirrelMail. Horde won't work because of the rewrite rules involved with IMP/Horde.

[cbergy]

Yup, that trusty old squirrel. Worked like a charm. Thanks!

However, I sit here contemplating, "how is my client going to receive my email if the domain's nameserver entries have been changed?"

Is there any way to point an email to a user on kernel? Obviously this won't work:

user@domain@kernel.apisnetworks.com

Any ideas?

[Matt]

Not having a domain name will sideline you for a while. The best option you can do in the meanwhile is to have the user pick up a temporary Gmail account.

Since the domain is in limbo right now, you can't send an e-mail to <user>@<domain> period. So let's say for an instance that <user>@<domain>@<server> didn't violate RFC. You'd still need to update every profile that used <user>@<domain> for the e-mail address to <user>@<domain>@<server>. The reason for this is due to the MX record in the domain's DNS configuration. When you send an e-mail to say msaladna@apisnetworks.com, it queries the zone apisnetworks.com for the MX record. It finds that record and now knows where to deliver the e-mail message. Now, because the domain is in limbo and is either a) frozen or b) deleted, the DNS resolver cannot retrieve the MX record for the account and thus the message is undeliverable.

I'd suggest you open up a Gmail account for the client as both a temporary solution and fallback for in the future.

[cbergy]

You're a fountain of knowledge good sir, thanks once again!