Conflict changing webmail url to mail.domain.tld

Reproduce:
Dreamhost Pannel > Mail > Webmail
Edit Http://webmail.dabritz.org/
Change Webmail location: http(s)://[ mail ].dabritz.org/ (changed from [ webmail ] to [ mail ] in the text box.

Problem:
Gives the following error:
"Invalid: mail.dabritz.org is already being used elsewhere!"

Expected:
mail.dabritz.org would be the base url in use

Notes:
Default Dreamhost only domains as they stand from the Web Panel > Domans > Manage Domains dialog for dabritz.org

A 208.113.199.177
MX 0 mx1.balanced.frisky.mail.dreamhost.com.
MX 0 mx2.balanced.frisky.mail.dreamhost.com.
NS ns1.dreamhost.com.
NS ns2.dreamhost.com.
NS ns3.dreamhost.com.
ftp A 208.113.199.177
mail A 208.113.200.10
mail MX 0 mx1.balanced.frisky.mail.dreamhost.com.
mail MX 0 mx2.balanced.frisky.mail.dreamhost.com.
mailboxes A 66.33.201.140
www.mailboxes A 66.33.201.140
mysql A 208.113.194.196
webmail A 66.33.201.160
www.webmail A 66.33.201.160
www A 208.113.199.177

I am already aware that there is a some sort of default mail service at http://mail.dabritz.org/. Please note two important problems. This is ONLY http, not https secure mail. http://webmail.dabritz.org/ and https://webmail.dabritz.org/ both behave as I would like mail.dabritz.org to behave. At the bottom of every squirrel mail login page, users are pointed to http://mailboxes.dabritz.org to manage mailbox settings (this URL isn't a problem). On that page there are two 'Check your email on the web' links, one for secure and one not. Both point to the webmail.dabritz.org pages.

What I would like to happen:
No more webmail.dabritz.org anything, all of it should be on mail.dabritz.org, and handled that way. It's more consistant and less to remember. Judging by the above, the 'webmail' and 'mail' domains are pointed to different servers, which seems odd. Does anyone know why? I don't believe I have done anything unusual set up wise, and it's all been through the control pannel for email related things. Aditionally, it would be nice if users were sent to (or at least linked to from a warning) the HTTPS:// page when trying to use the insecure HTTP:// page.

So I would appreciate any thoughts about making this set up work the way I would like, and what is possible/easy and impossible/hard. Thank you in advance for your helpful responses!

-Colin Dabritz

The DNS record mail.dabritz.org points to the actual mail servers.
webmail.dabritz.org points to a web server with the webmail application installed.
As far as I know you are not able to change/delete the mail.dabritz.org record as long your DNS servers are set to DreamHosts. They don't allow editing this DNS records. So as the error message said: The URL is already taken.

Well the MX Records do, definitely, point to the mail servers. But notice the "A" record?

mail A 208.113.200.10

That's the problem, and there is no reason it shouldn't be pointing at the same places at webmail, and that the web server (running on php/apache I believe) cannot be set to pick up and serve mail to that URL as specified. Is this impossible to change with the current setup?

The A record is also the POP/IMAP server, so that'd definitely screw you up.

-Scott

This is done so that you can use "mail.example.org" as the hostname of the POP/SMTP/IMAP server when configuring mail clients (e.g., Thunderbird, Pegasus, Eudora, and even the pieces of crap from Microsoft) to access your mail. This leaves "webmail.example.org" as the address of the web server hosting the SquirrelMail program for webmail access. Those are two distinct functions that use different servers.

-- Dan