Using Webmail at Media Temple for Externally Hosted Domains

It's possible to use Media Temple as your email and webmail service while hosting your domain's site elsewhere. This article shows you how to create and point a subdomain to your Media Temple webmail address. This guide assumes that your email is managed at Media Temple. If you need help configuring your DNS, please consult this DNS article or contact support. 

Instructions

You may always navigate directly to webmail using your Grid access domain. Make sure you replace the info with your domain's:

https://s000000.gridserver.com/.tools/webmail 

It is also possible to create a subdomain on your domain that redirects to webmail via a 301 redirect. This is simple to do and allows you to access your webmail via an easy to remember address such as 'webmail.yourdomain.com'. 

1. The first step is to add an A record for a webmail subdomain that points to the IP of the Grid server. To do this, navigate to your Grid Server Overview page and click on Edit DNS Zone File. 

2. Scroll to the bottom of your zone file and click add row. Fill in the name of the subdomain you'd like to create (called webmail in the example below) and add your Grid's IP address. 

3. Use the Grid file manager, SSH, or FTP to create a file structure for the webmail subdomain within the /domains/ directory. Once you've created the the directories, you'll create an .htaccess that contains a 301 redirect. Refer to the instructions below for additional help. 

Create the 301 Redirect - Using SSH

Connect to your server via ssh and create your subdomain's file structure. Replace 'example.com' with your domain:

cd domains 
mkdir -p webmail.example.com/html 

Use your preferred BASH text editor to create an .htaccess file within your new subdomain's html folder. Add the 301 redirect and save the file.This redirect will point your subdomain to your webmail address. Make sure you replace the Grid access domain with your own.

vim .htaccess
Redirect 301 / https://s000000.gridserver.com/.tools/webmail/

Create the 301 Redirect - Using an FTP client

Create your subdomain's file structure in the domains folder. This means that you are creating 2 directories, 'webmail.example.com', and 'html': 

/domains/webmail.example.com/html

The next step is to create an .htaccess file that contains the 301 redirect. This redirect will point your subdomain to your webmail address. If you're using an FTP client such as Filezilla or similar, the easiest way to create the .htaccess file is to open a blank text file on your desktop, add the redirect code, save the file and upload it.

Once you've created your .htaccess, add the following line. Don't forget to replace the Grid access domain with your own:

Redirect 301 / https://s000000.gridserver.com/.tools/webmail/

The file path should look like this:

/domains/webmail.example.com/html/.htaccess

4. Once propagation completes, you should be able to navigate to your subdomain and be redirected to your webmail login. Keep in mind that the update is still subject to propagation times, so you may need to wait up to 24 hours for the changes to take effect. 

If you have any issues or would like assistance, please free to contact Media Temple's award winning 24/7 support team.