Setting Up Google Apps Standard Edition

tips, etc. You should also consider allowing Google to contact you for feed-

back. That's the best way they have of improving things. When you're done,

click the Continue with set up button and you'll be transported to the admin-

istrative dashboard.

Tip

Write down your administrative user name and password and put it

somewhere safe.

That's it! You've registered and created your domain.

Existing and Alias Domains

Verifying Ownership of an Existing Domain

If you have an existing domain, you can move that domain to your new Google

Apps domain. When you start the process to activate services within Google Apps,

you'll be asked to verify that you really own the domain you entered. This comes

after you fill out the forms telling Google about your current site and organization

and after you accept its terms. Google will then provide you with a unique string

that you will use to verify your ownership. The string will be something along the

lines of: google814e1b5f364b056d. You can use this unique string and either upload

an HTML file or create a CNAME record for the site to complete the verification

process. You'll have 30 days to verify your domain; otherwise, Google will remove

your Google Apps site.

Figure 3. Confirmation page

Setting Up Google Apps Standard Edition

14

Note

You do need a modicum of technical skill to verify that you actually are the

administrator to an existing site. The user help forum is full of forlorn folk

that have a site hosted somewhere but don't know how to modify DNS

records or upload a file. If you fall into that unhappy group, you'll need to

ask the administrators that host your site to do one of these things for you.

To begin the verification process, click Verify domain ownership and choose your

verification method.

To verify your account by uploading an HTML file:

1. Using your favorite HTML editing software, create an HTML file that con-

tains the unique string provided by Google.

2.

Save the file with the following filename: googlehostedservice.html.

3. Upload the file to your existing site.

4.

Click Verify in Google Apps.

To verify your account by changing a CNAME record:

1. Log in to your domain provider's control panel for your domain.

2. Create a CNAME record using the unique string provided by Google.

3. Use google.com as the host name.

4. Save your DNS changes.

5.

Click Verify in Google Apps.

6. Wait. This can take up to 48 hours.

If you reconfigure your MX records, email arriving at Google Apps will also serve

as a verification. This is covered in the following section.

Moving Your Email

While you're waiting for domain verification, or if you've decided to verify by

changing MX records, you can reset your domain's MX records to point to Google

Apps. However, before you reset the MX records, create all of the users for your

site. These users should match the users in your existing site. This will ensure that

no email is lost (Google provides temporary email aliases to provide time for you

to make the switch). To do this, see Setting Up Users.

To reset your MX records:

1. Log in to the domain provider's control panel for your domain.

Setting Up Google Apps Standard Edition

15

2. Change your MX records based on the following table. While you may not

be able to set the priority as shown in the table (for instance, they may be set

as 10, 20, 30, and so on), the order of the entries is vital. Also, note that your

domain control panel may only accept five entries; that is, you may not be

able to enter ASPMX4.GOOGLEMAIL.COM., and ASPMX5.GOOGLEMAIL.COM. That's OK,

it'll still work. Note the trailing periods when you enter the mail servers. These

are fully qualified domain names and require such.

Priority Mail Server

1 ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.

5 ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.

5 ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.

10 ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.

10 ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.

10 ASPMX4.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.

10 ASPMX5.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.

3. Save your DNS changes.

Note

Google provides exact instructions for a number of domain providers at

https://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?

answer=33352&topic=9196.

Moving an Existing Domain

OK, now that you've verified ownership it's time to shift things over to Google

Apps. This involves resetting your CNAME records to point to Google Apps.

To reset your CNAME records

1. Log in to the domain provider's control panel for your domain.

2. Set the host for all of your custom URLs to ghs.google.com. (The trailing

period should be entered if your control panel allows it.)

3. Save your DNS changes.

4. Wait. It's that 48-hour thing again. It can take that long for changes to per-

colate through the Internet.

Setting Up Google Apps Standard Edition

16