Adding your records at Gandi

Gandi takes the Issue Mint records on the domain’s DNS records tab, and the one thing to get right there is the trailing dot: a CNAME value without one is read as a hostname inside your own domain. The record set is otherwise the same set every provider gets, and what each record does does not change with the provider.

You are not blocked while these are pending. Your newsletter sends and its website stays published on the issuemint.com address until the records verify.

Open the DNS records tab

Sign in to Gandi, open the domain from your list of domains, and choose its DNS records tab. Add a record is the form, with Type, Name, TTL and a value field whose label changes with the type you pick.

Name is what other providers call Host, and @ means the domain itself. There is also a text view of the whole zone, which is quicker if you are comfortable reading a zone file and are adding several records in one sitting.

Add the www and tracking records with a trailing dot

Both are CNAME records. Type the bare label in Name, paste the destination into the value field, and add a dot to the end of it.

The go record is what serves your click tracking links from your own domain rather than ours.

Add the certificate and DMARC records

The three certificate records are CNAMEs on _acme-challenge hosts, and their values hold an identifier that only exists inside your account, so copy each one from the domain tab. They take the same trailing dot as the records above, and they keep HTTPS renewing on each of your hostnames afterwards.

The DMARC row is a TXT record and needs no dot, because its value is a policy rather than a hostname. It is a suggestion, too: a _dmarc record you already have is left exactly as it is.

Add the sending records when they appear

Five more records turn up in the domain tab shortly after the domain is added, once Amazon has minted your DKIM tokens. They are what let issues come from your own address instead of ours, and the three DKIM rows are the ones worth adding today rather than at the weekend.

The DKIM values are hostnames, so each one ends with a dot. The MX value is a hostname too, with its priority in Gandi’s own field beside it. The SPF row is a TXT record and takes no dot. What changes once all five pass is described in sending from your own domain.

Use the www address if the root will not take a CNAME

Gandi has no ALIAS or ANAME record type, so there is no supported way to put the root of a domain on a hostname, and that row may be refused outright.

When the root is the only thing left outstanding, the domain tab offers www.yourdomain.com as your address instead: one click, reversible, and the root records stay in the table being checked in case you move DNS later. If other rows are failing too, work through a record that will not verify first, because a missing dot and a missing record look identical from the outside.