alias.mom
On this page
The records Required Recommended Verification We keep watching Then

Using your own domain

Aliases on alias.mom depend on us existing. Aliases on yourdomain.com do not: if we disappear, or you get bored of us, you repoint the MX record and every address you have handed out keeps working.

If you plan to use this seriously, do this. It is the single most important thing on this site.

The records

Add the domain in the dashboard and it shows you the exact values. There are three you need and four you want.

Required

Type Host Value
TXT your domain the ownership token shown in the dashboard
MX your domain mx.alias.mom, priority 10
TXT dkim._domainkey.yourdomain.com v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=... (generated per domain)

Ownership proves it is yours. MX sends the mail here. DKIM signs your outgoing mail with a key generated for your domain and nobody else's.

Type Host Value
TXT your domain v=spf1 include:alias.mom ~all
TXT _dmarc.yourdomain.com v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; adkim=r; aspf=r
TXT _mta-sts.yourdomain.com v=STSv1; id=...
CNAME mta-sts.yourdomain.com mta-sts.alias.mom
TXT _smtp._tls.yourdomain.com v=TLSRPTv1; rua=mailto:tlsrpt@alias.mom

SPF and DMARC are what stop your mail landing in spam, so "recommended" is doing some work there. Add them.

The MTA-STS pair is the interesting one. Publishing MTA-STS normally means running a web server on mta-sts.yourdomain.com with a valid certificate, forever, which is why almost nobody does it. That CNAME hands the job to us instead. You get the protection without running anything.

Verification

We check the records and show you which are in place. DNS takes minutes to hours to propagate depending on your provider and your old TTLs; if something is missing, it is usually just not visible yet.

We keep watching

Verification is not once. We re-check periodically, and if a record disappears we tell you rather than letting mail quietly stop. DNS breaks silently and nobody notices until someone asks why they never got a reply.

Then

Turn on catch-all, which is where owning a domain stops being administrative and starts being useful.


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