Using ForwardMX with Hetzner's DNS is one of the original use cases that we built the service for.
In this knowledgebase article, we will go through the whole setup to use ForwardMX as your MX server and receive all your domains emails while using Hetzner as DNS provider. Now let’s get started.
We assume you already have setup your domain in Hetzner DNS.
If that is not the case, check out this guide from Hetzner.
1. Go to your DNS settings
Login to your Hetzner DNS account and select to the domain you want add ForwardMX to.
2. Add MX Records
On the DNS panel, click the "Delete" button next to any existing MX records that may be configured on your domain, to prevent deliverability issues.
You'll need the MX Records for your ForwardMX service, which you can find under "MX Records and Setup Instructions" in your ForwardMX account.
In the "Create new record" section, select MX as the Type, @ as the Name, and click in the value box.
It will then pop up this window, where you can set the Priority to 10 and mail server to mx1.forwardmx.net (or whichever one appears in your account).
Click "Update Value" to close the popup, and then click "Add Record".
Repeat those same steps for the secondary mail server:
3. Configure the TXT record
In the "Create Record" box, we'll now create the TXT record.
- Select TXT as the record type
- Set the name to @
- Enter the values for the TXT/SPF record, which for all ForwardMX services is
"v=spf1 include:_spf.forwardmx.net -all" - Leave the TTL as default and click "Add Record".
4. Done
If everything is right it should look like this, with the relevant mail servers for your account if they are not MX1/MX2:
Now wait for DNS propagation for these changes, which can be as quick as 5 minutes and as long as 48 hours, and you are ready to receive emails on your Hetzner domain through ForwardMX.
