How To: Setup 5 free email accounts against your domain
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BitmapBytes.com uses the Oracle Cloud to host this blog - in a 6 part series I will be taking you through how you can quickly and easily spin up a website with 200gb of free space hosted on the Oracle Cloud. Connect it with your domain with https support, setup the domain with free email service for 5 emails provided by ZOHO mail - and finally install the Ghost blogging platform and configuring it with Mailgun for sending out newsletters to your followers.
- Part 1 - Setting up an account with Oracle Cloud
- Part 2 - Spinning up an Oracle Virtual Machine
- Part 3 - Configuring your Oracle Virtual Machine as a webserver
- Part 4 - Install Ghost CMS
- Part 5 - Setup free email provider
- Part 6 - Configure Mailgun
Now that Google started charging for their mail service the next best free email provider - if you are just starting up and want to connect your domain is ZOHO Mail.
You get Up to five users:
- 5GB/User, 25MB attachment limit.
- Web access and free mobile apps*.
- Email hosting for single domain.
Signup
The signup page for the free service is a little hidden; so, here is the direct link to signup for the free service - https://mail.zoho.eu/signup?type=org&plan=free
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You'll need to validate/verify with either your mobile or another email account
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Once in you get a nice step by step guide to configuring your domain.
Start by selecting the "Add now" button and will go through the configuration step-by-step..
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Configuration
Ok now you are signed up lets configure ZOHO Mail and get it hooked up with your domain..
Add your domain -
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Once added let's verify that you own the domain select the "Proceed to domain verification" button.
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Ok you have three options at this point to verify you own the domain
- Add  TXT record in the DNS
- Add a CNAME record in the DNS
- Upload HTML file in the website
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They are all pretty easy so lets go through each - you only need one.
Adding TXT Â or CNAME record in the DNS
Open up you Domain registrars DNS panel - I'm using 123-reg but it's pretty much the same approach with any registrar ie godaddy etc. And add the info asked for by ZOHO Mail -
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Upload HTML file in the website
Download the html file create a folder "zohoverify" and upload it into there.
If you've been following the other series of setting up the Oracle Cloud Virtual Machine with ghost then these are the steps - launch your terminal I'm using mobaXterm.
# cd into your domain root
cd /var/www/<yourdomain_or_ghostCSMS>/
# make the zohoverify dir
mkdir zohoverify
# go into the new folder
# cd zohoverify
# upload the html file I just dragged it in through mobaXterm but you can recreate it and copy and paste the contents if you really want..
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Once verified - create your primary admin account email
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Now that your primary email account has been created you can easily create 4 more accounts now or later.
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From the DNS Mapping panel lets configure the MX records so that we can receive emails. - To do that go back into you domain registrars DNS Panel and add the records provided by ZOHO Mail  as the below example.
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Here is a quick example of mine once added - go back to ZOHO dashboard and select "Verify All Records" button.
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You may get this notification - so sit back and give it 24hrs..
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Once everything has been verified you should see something like this -
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Now skip to the end and select "Check out your inbox" button.
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Congratulations!
You should now have access to your new free email provider service and with the ability up to create 4 more free email accounts.
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