How-To set up email to be hosted on a different server

Introduction

Some want to host email on a different server than where the website content is. This is ok as long as you make some DNS changes using the steps below.

Procedure

1. 1. Add a new A record for mail.domain.com and point it to the server's IP address that is hosting the email.
2. 2. Set the MX record for domain.com to this new A record, mail.domain.com
3. 3. Copy the SPF and DKIM records from the cPanel server that hosts the email to the DNS hosting server. 
4. 4. If the server hosting the domain content is also a cPanel & WHM server, you need to set the mail exchanger to "remote" using the cPanel or WHM interface. 

With the above steps, all emails for the domain.com will be directed to the cPanel server you want to host only email.