> How are you supposed to gracefully migrate a live domain? I'm not > especially familiar with their mail server product (I should get more > familiar I suppose -- It's the one area I will not ever outsource > though, unfortunately for Tucows) but still, in every successful > migration of any sort that I've ever done, the only reliable method has > been to keep both the old and new services running simultaneously for a > brief period, at least 24 hours above your TTL (to accommodate ISPs that > don't grasp how TTLs work)
Yes you do need to keep the services running on the old server until the old DNS information has expired from all the caches *and* for all those clueless providers whose systems ignore TTL. Keeping the old system listed as a lower priority MX in DNS doesn't help with the process. Everyone sending to the old system will be looking at old cached DNS info, not the new stuff. >From what I've read on the list today, I do see a flaw in Tucows process in that they don't activate for up to an hour after the change is live in DNS. This may cause mail to bounce between the time the change is active and DNS and the time Tucows activates the mail service for all those clueful systems that actually observe TTLs and try sending the mail to Tucows before Tucows has activated. (with all that said we don't use the tucows mail/dns services either) -- <=> ASK and you shall receive <=>
