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A Technical Question Regarding Web Hosting, Email, And Google Applications

Sep 18, 2009
By .
Effluvia

As a couple of you know, last year I started a personal site/blog at another domain for purely vanity purposes.  It was a nice site while it lasted (it still lasts), but I was drawn back to the 'Hat.  I don't intend to keep the blog portion of it alive, but I do intend to keep the domain for myself, and I've quite enjoyed keeping personal email accounts, etc. through Google Apps.

The site is registered through GoDaddy, but is hosted by Dreamhost, which is a fine hosting company, but not very helpful to those who wish to cancel hosting services.  Now I'm coming up on one year renewal, which I'm not inclined to keep (because while I'm keeping the domain I've already archived everything written on the blog, and don't care to preserve that for posterity).  But Dreamhost, if I cancel hosting (which I will), tells me that the cancellation will be effective immediately, which would also end my use of Google Apps (included through Dreamhost's hosting service), I think, which I don't want to happen.  And naturally I can't find a tutorial on how to cancel Dreamhost hosting service while keeping access to Google Apps, which means, primarily, email for me and a few other people to whom I've given accounts on that domain.

Google, unfortunately, also seems most unhelpful in terms of online guides for how to resolve such a problem.

Do we have any readers with experience with cancelling hosting through Dreamhost but keeping access to Google Apps, or repointing domains generally?  Anyone with insight into this problem on a basic level who might be willing to give advice?  Am I even asking the right questions?  If so or if not, please feel free to comment below, using a working email address in the provided comment line (NOT the text body of the comment – I can read your address behind the Popehat dashboard), and I'll get in touch via email.

God bless.

Last 5 posts by Patrick

7 Comments
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7 Comments

  1. Mike D  •  Sep 18, 2009 @9:33 am

    I'm not familiar with either Dreamhost or Google Apps as relates to email, but I use GoDaddy for all my domain registrations (and related email addresses) and I can speak to what I see and experience if that's helpful.

  2. Sean  •  Sep 18, 2009 @10:10 am

    Your email is likely controlled through your MX records at godaddy. If you are loggin into your apps through dreamhost, you can probably change it by going to your godaddy control panel and adjusting the mx entries. Here is the tutorial I followed when I set up google apps on one of my domains at godaddy : http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=33353. I suspect that once you change these, dreamhost will not be involved in your google apps stuff anymore.

  3. Patrick  •  Sep 18, 2009 @10:14 am

    Thanks Sean, I'll give that a try this weekend.

  4. Chris  •  Sep 18, 2009 @10:50 am

    Do you have a direct administrator login for google apps? Because if you do, and you control the DNS registration, I don't see how dreamhost could cancel google apps. You might need to manually change some DNS settings.

  5. Jared  •  Sep 18, 2009 @10:56 am

    Full disclosure: I am not an expert with Google Apps. I've created an account and poked around a little, but I'm hesitant to hold myself out as a pro at this time.

    Are you using the Standard edition (free) of Google Apps, or one of the "for pay" editions (I only ask because I'm using the free, standard edition and don't know if there are other features in the monetized versions)?

    If you're using the standard edition, and you plan on hosting your domain somewhere after you leave Dreamhost, it seems like you should be okay as long as you have access to the DNS settings at your new host (or have a site host that is amenable to making configuration changes on your behalf).

    As I understand it, the Google Apps account is not really tied to your web host – it just relies upon DNS configuration of your web hosting service (and your domain's entry in their name servers, of course). The reason I think this is that you should be able to log in to your Google Apps account from any PC, on or off your domain (using any DNS), and use it. The key is just telling your new web host's name servers about Google Apps, which allows you to do your business through Google under the guise of your own domain name instead of being forced to go through google.com.

    Here's a page outlining the important DNS changes to allow you to use your Google Apps through your domain: http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=60214. Before signing off with your current host, you may want to look for an HTML file in your site's root called 'googlehostedservice.html'. If you find it, copy it and place it at the root of your site on your new host – it's how Google verifies your domain is a user of Google Apps. If it's not there, then the host has entered a CNAME record in their DNS that does effectively the same thing – I think the instructions at the link above should have detailed instructions for how to recreate the CNAME record if necessary.

    Sorry if this is over-long or over-complicated. The short answer is: I don't think terminating an agreement with your host should mean the destruction of your Google Apps account(s). I think it's possible what they meant was that terminating your agreement with them would mean that you would be unable to reach Google Apps via the domain you hosted with them (since they will expunge your domain from their name servers upon termination). I would clarify this point with Dreamhost before terminating service, but I don't think they would be authorized to instruct Google to remove your Apps registration.

    I hope this helps,
    J

  6. Chris  •  Sep 18, 2009 @11:08 am

    "I think it’s possible what they meant was that terminating your agreement with them would mean that you would be unable to reach Google Apps via the domain you hosted with them (since they will expunge your domain from their name servers upon termination)."
    That's probably correct. You should still be able to log in from google.com

  7. Nick  •  Sep 18, 2009 @11:30 am

    The main thing is find out who is handling your DNS. If it's goDaddy you're fine. If it's dreamhost you likely will want to have goDaddy take over ( they will handle your DNS for an additional fee ). Once you move it over to goDaddy you will want to set up MX (mail) records pointing to Google.

    If you're not sure where it is you can look up your MX records here:

    http://www.mxtoolbox.com/