Robert L Mathews wrote: > In other words, you want both the old and new mail servers accepting > mail during the overlap period to compensate for the fact that a > sending mail server will act as though both MX records are present in > the DNS during the TTL period (i.e., it could send to either the old > or the new server), even though you've completely removed the old > record. But literally putting both MX records in the DNS for some > period doesn't buy you anything; it just lengthens the period during > which mail will arrive at either server. > > So it doesn't really make sense to add a new MX record and also leave > the old MX record in the DNS for 24 hours, as you seem to be > implying. It just delays the propagation.
Sure, I wouldn't put both DNS servers in the rotation at once, nor was I suggesting you do so. > However, as a completely separate issue (although perhaps I > misunderstood and this is the problem you were mentioning), it sounds > like Tucows's mail product will actually refuse mail for the domain > until it determines that it's the only MX server listed, and it only > checks whether that's true once per hour. That would mean it's > impossible to switch an existing domain to use Tucows mail without > risking bounces. Not only that, but unless Tucows can guarentee that I didn't make a typo setting up user accounts or forget an account or something, I wouldn't move MX over until I could verify all the mailboxes are active and working. Since I doubt Tucows is willing to promise that *I* won't make a mistake... The way I normally migrate a domain is to setup the mailboxes, redirect A or CNAME records of mail.* smtp.* pop3.* and imap.* to the new server (note, this does NOT include the MX records), and set my server to redirect mail to the new server. No mail would bounce, anything that the new server rejects would end up in my old server's queues. To be honest, I'd probably be willing to migrate all the DNS data over at once, as long as I could at least login and verify that the accounts were working. -- Dave Warren, Email/MSN MSG: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cell: (403) 371-3470 Toll free: (888) 371-3470 ICQ: 17848192 AIM: devilspgd Yahoo!: devilspgd
