DrewsBox

Google Apps is a great way to manage email accounts for your domain. Other features include Google Docs and Google Calendar which can drastically enhance your organization and collaboration while saving you time and money. With Google Apps, your domain gets its own Gmail accounts (@yourdomain.com) for your users.

Why use Google Apps for your domain’s email?

• It’s Google! Get all the benefits of Google’s innovative security, reliability, and usability.
• It’s free! There is also a premiere edition with extra storage and features.
• It’s easy to set up!

Setting Up Google Apps On Media Temple Hosting

While trying to set up Google Apps correctly for my first time, I was frustrated by the lack of support articles in the Knowledge Base. I searched online and didn’t find much help specifically for Media Temple domains. I found myself trying different combination of CNAME values but I continued to get Error messages when logged into the domain’s Gmail interface. Once I finally got the email delivery working, it broke my custom webmail URL (you can customize the URL that users go to access the webmail). I eventually got it all working and realized how easy it should have been. I then went out and set up Google Apps on another one of my domains and it took only 5 minutes. Although changes take hours to take effect, the setup was quick and painless!

For experienced users, looking at the screenshots of the CNAME and MX record values should be enough to help quickly complete the process. For a more detailed walkthrough, read on.

You can get started with Google Apps here. Choose from the standard edition or the premiere edition or even try a 30 day free trial of the premiere edition. Fill out the necessary information. You will be taken to your new Google Apps dashboard.

Verify Domain Ownership

The first thing you need to do is verify that you own the domain. You can do this in one of two ways; upload an html file with a unique hash provided by Google, or by adding a CNAME record to the domain. With Media Temple hosted domains, I recommend the latter. Adding CNAME values is very easy for Media Temple hosted domains. From your Account Center overview, click the domain you are adding CNAMEs for. On the next page, under DNS Zone File, click “Edit Zone File”. This is where you add the CNAME record. Click “Add a Record”. The record name will look something similar to “googleffffffffdd35a0e0″. This is a unique hash that can be found by clicking “Verify Domain Ownership” on your Google Apps dashboard. Set the type to “CNAME” and data to “google.com”. Click save when you are done but don’t close the page.

MX Records

Next you will need to change the MX records of your domain so that email will be sent to your Google Apps webmail instead of the Media Temple webmail. From the Google Apps dashboard, click “Activate Email.” Back on the Edit Zone File page of your Media Temple Account Center, delete all existing records with the type “MX” and add 7 new records with your domain in the Name column, “MX” as the type, and the following values in the Data column:
10 ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
20 ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
20 ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
30 ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
30 ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
30 ASPMX4.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
30 ASPMX5.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
When you are finished, save your updates in the zone file (don’t close the page) and click “I have completed these steps” on the Google Apps page.

Custom URLs for Google Services

Lastly you will customize the URLs for all of the Google Apps features (email, docs, calendar, sites). Click on “Service Settings” on the main menu of your Google Apps dashboard. Select “Email” from the list. Then click “Change URL” followed by “Change URLs for all domain services”. For each feature listed, choose a custom URL that is user friendly. For instance, setting the custom value of “mail” for the Email URL will allow users to reach the webmail page by entering mail.yourdomain.com instead of http://mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.com. When you are ready, click continue. Now you need to head back to your Media Temple domain zone file and add more CNAME records. Add one record for each custom URL you made in the last step. The Name column should contain the custom URL (i.e. “mail.yourdomain.com”), the type should be “CNAME”, and the Data column should read “ghs.google.com.”.

That’s it! Save your zone file changes, choose “I’ve completed these steps” at the next page, and you’re done! Changes may take anywhere from one hour to 48 hours to take effect.