Is Route 53 your DNS host?
If the domain's nameservers read ns-….awsdns-….com, .net, .org and .co.uk — four of them, one on each — yes, and the records go in a hosted zone in the AWS console. A domain registered through Route 53 gets a hosted zone and those nameservers automatically. A domain registered elsewhere uses Route 53 only if its registrar was pointed at them; if the nameservers name another company, that host's guide is the one to follow.
Route 53 has one trap here that no other host has: an account can hold more than one hosted zone with the same name, and only one of them is the zone the world asks. It happens when a zone is deleted and made again, or made twice by accident. Each zone has its own four nameservers. Before adding anything, open the zone, choose View details (or look at Hosted zone details), and check its Name servers are the four the domain actually uses — under Registered domains if you bought it through AWS, at the registrar otherwise. Records added to the other zone are saved, listed, and never answered.
The zone's Type should also read Public. A private hosted zone answers only inside an AWS network, and nothing outside it — no sender, and not imado — can see its records.
Where the records go
- Sign in to the AWS console and open Route 53.
- Choose Hosted zones, then the zone's name.
- Press Create record. The console opens either the quick form or a wizard; if it is the wizard, choose Switch to quick create — the fields below are the quick form's.
- Fill in the fields and press Create records.
What Route 53 calls each field
Two of Route 53's fields hold something different from most other hosts: a TXT value is typed inside double quotes, and the MX record's priority is part of its value rather than a field of its own. The table under Add the six records shows both, already written the way Route 53 wants them.
| On imado | On Amazon Route 53 | What to put |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Record type | Choose it from the list: TXT, CNAME or MX. |
| Host | Record name | Only the part before your domain — Route 53 shows .example.com after the field and adds it itself. For the MX record, leave it empty: Route 53 takes @ as an ordinary character, so @ makes a record for @.example.com. |
| Value | Value | A TXT value goes inside double quotes, and the MX value starts with its priority — 10, a space, then the server. imado's page writes them that way once it recognises Route 53; copy them as they are, adding nothing. |
| Priority | (in Value) | Route 53 has no Priority field. It is the number at the front of the MX record's Value. |
| — | TTL (seconds) | Leave it at the default Route 53 fills in. |
| — | Routing policy | Leave it at Simple routing. |
| — | Alias | Leave it off. It is for pointing at AWS resources, and turning it on replaces the Value box with a picker. |
What to put for the domain itself
One record — the MX record, the one that makes mail arrive — belongs to the domain itself rather than to anything in front of it. Every DNS panel has its own way of saying that, and on Route 53 the usual answer is the one that breaks.
On Route 53, leave Record name empty. AWS's own documentation says it plainly: for a record with the same name as the hosted zone, do not enter a value — not even an @.
@ is the convention most other panels use, and instructions written for one of them will tell you to type it. On Route 53 it is not a shorthand. Route 53 accepts @ as an ordinary character in a name, so it saves the record for @.example.com — without a warning, and with a correct-looking value — and mail to your domain is never pointed at imado. Typing example.com is no better: Route 53 already shows .example.com after the field, and the name belongs in front of it.
The other five records all have something in front of the domain — _imado-challenge, _dmarc, the three _domainkey names — and those go in Record name exactly as shown, with nothing after them.
Add the six records
First the ownership record; then, once imado shows it as Added, the other five. Each is a Create record with Routing policy left at Simple routing and Alias off.
| Record type | Record name | Value |
|---|---|---|
| TXT | _imado-challenge | "imado-verification=…" |
| CNAME | …._domainkey | ….dkim.amazonses.com |
| CNAME | …._domainkey | ….dkim.amazonses.com |
| CNAME | …._domainkey | ….dkim.amazonses.com |
| MX | (empty) | 10 inbound-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com |
| TXT | _dmarc | "v=DMARC1; p=none;" |
The quotes and the priority are the two things that set Route 53 apart. When imado sees that your domain is served by Route 53, your domain's page already shows every value this way — quoted, with the priority in front — so copy it with the button and paste it as it is, adding nothing. If the page instead offers a choice of forms, it has not recognised Route 53: pick the one with the priority included, and put the quotes around the two TXT values yourself. Route 53 treats a trailing dot on the MX and CNAME values as optional, so either form is fine.
What gets in the way
- An MX record already on the domain. Route 53 keeps exactly one record per name and type, so if the zone already has an MX record — from WorkMail, Google Workspace, an earlier SES setup — Create record refuses a second one as already existing. Select the existing MX record, choose Edit record, and replace its value with imado's. Do not add imado's as a second line beside the old one: several lines in one MX record are several mail servers, and the old one would keep receiving some of the mail.
- A DMARC record already on the domain. The same rule applies to
_dmarc: edit the existing TXT record there rather than adding one. A domain may publish only one DMARC policy; keep yours if you already have one you meant to set. - The wrong hosted zone. If everything looks right and imado still sees nothing, check the zone's name servers against the domain's, as above. It is the most common reason a correct Route 53 record is invisible.
- Checking too early. A name looked up before its record existed can be remembered as missing for up to a quarter of an hour. Add the record first, then check.
Then, on imado
Back on your domain's page, press Check again. Route 53 publishes a change to all of its nameservers within a minute. When the ownership record is Added, the other records appear; when those are, create the mailbox and send yourself a message — steps 5 and 6 of the setup.
AWS's own guides cover creating a record, the value each field takes, and how TXT and MX values are written.
