Google Apps free email hosting through MX-records (in Loopia)

For the skrivaPå project I bought the domains of skrivapa.se and skrivapa.com through Loopia. But because the project has some special requirements for security, for hosting Haskell-code and because we consider speed essential their hosting solution doesn´t really match the criteria. So far I have handled all the business in the startup phase through my private email but as our beta launching date is approaching quickly it was time to set up some real email accounts for skrivaPå. As I didn´t want to buy hosting just for the email I started to look around to find a way to host our domain-specific email-accounts for free. The obvious choice fell on Google Apps with their excellent spam protection and reliable email-service. This is how to do it:

1. Choose a cheap registrar and register the domain. For swedish domains Loopia is one of the cheapest. For international accounts GoDaddy has good prices.

2. Go to Google Apps Standard Edition (the free version) and set up your account.

3. Verify ownership of your domain through the following steps:
a. Go to "Domain Settings" in your Google Apps account
b. Choose to verify by "CNAME records" you should see some instructions plus a code
with something like googleffffffffeef5c1c0
c. Open a new tab in your browser and go to your registrar and go to "Domain
Settings". Depending on your registrar you do differently. For more detailed info
see Google Help for creating CNAME records. For Loopia try this: choose subdomain "*".
Press "DNS" and choose "CNAME". Copy the verification code that´s something like
googleffffffffeef5c1c0 to define your CNAME record at Loopia. Rewrite the code to
something like googleffffffffeef5c1c0.yourdomain.com. Press save. Now further down see
"Skicka vidare till extern URL", in swedish that is "forward to external URL", write
http://google.com. Press save.
d. Now go back to your Google Apps account and press "control and configure
email-delivery". Now you should see instructions about how to configure your MX
records. You can also find the instructions at Google Help.
e. Go back to your registrar. For Loopia you do this: Go to the button "E-mail" in
your admin account. Press "E-postval för domännamn", that is "email choices for
domain names". Choose "Hantera e-post med extern server (MX-pekning)", that is
"handle e-mail through external server".
f. First remove all existing MX records. Now you start adding the MX serveradresses
given in your Google Apps account (or found at Google Help)and the priorities in the boxes
and you have to press save after each add.
g. Go back to your Google Apps account and press "I´m done with this step"

4. Voila! Now wait for up to 48 hours for the changes to take place.

If you already have an email account that you want to move be aware that you wont be able to recieve any emails during in the meantime, though when its all done you will recieve the emails from the past days in your inbox. They should be accessible for your server for up to 4-7 days. So if you dont go over that time you should be safe that no emails get lost in cyberspace.

If you have problems in Loopia try this:

1. Go to "Domäninställningar".
2. Choose your domain and press "DNS editor"
3. Post the code given from Google Apps as your subdomain for example
googleffffffffeef5c1c0
4. Choose "type" CNAME
5. Put "TTL" 3600
6. Put "Data" google.com.