On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 3:24 PM, Debashish Basak <dba...@pycon.com> wrote: > We are in the process of moving to a new location. The present internet > provider is being changed to a new provider.
This is a straightforward procedure. You can change the A records associated with the domain names specified by your MX records, or you can change your MX records. I suggest changing the MX records. Since you're allowed to specify multiple MX records, add MX records for the new site, while leaving the old ones intact. That way you can cut-over the servers, and the rest of the Internet will retry around you. > Will there be a downtime when this change happens? Are you moving servers as well, or are you bringing up new servers in the new location, to replace old servers at the old location? If you're moving servers, of course there will be downtime when those servers are down. Most mail systems will retry for a day or two, so you may be able to sustain an outage of a few hours without anyone noticing. Ideally, you get connectivity at the new site, and bring up new equipment there. Have that equipment forward mail back to your old site. Then add the MX records for the new site, making them preferred over the old site's MX records. The rest of the world will start sending mail through your new site, and the new site will forward it to your old site. Then, when ready, you just stop forwarding and leave mail at your new site. Once you're confident everything is working at the new site, remove the MX records for the old site. Then, and only then, discontinue connectivity services at your old site. On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 3:43 PM, Debashish Basak <dba...@pycon.com> wrote: > As far as changing the DNS and MX records do I just cancel the zone file > with the present provider and request for creation of a new zone file with > the new provider? There's absolutely no technical reason your DNS hosting should be tied to your connectivity provider. Don't try to switch both connectivity and DNS hosting at the same time; it makes things more complicated, and opens you up to failure scenarios you can't easily get out of. If your connectivity provider is also your DNS provider, and you want to keep it that way, then I suggest first getting the services activated at your new site, well in advance. Copy your DNS zone from the old provider to the new provider, but keep the records as they are for your old site. Run manual queries to confirm both providers are giving the same set of DNS answers. Then submit the changes at the DNS registry to switch to the new DNS provider. The rest of the world will gradually switch over from the old DNS provider to the new one, but since both providers are giving the same answers, it doesn't matter who they ask. There is an unpredictable delay for the time it takes your registrar to process your change request and submit it to the registry. This can range from minutes to hours. Once your registrar has submitted changes to the registry, things are predictable. Last I knew, changes at the GTLD nameservers are loaded twice a day, so allow up to 12 hours for that. TTL on the GTLD zones is 48 hours. So at a minimum, allow for 60 hours for changes to registered nameservers. Once DNS is transitioned, then start making connectivity and/or server changes. -- Ben ~ Ninja Email Security with Cloudmark Spam Engine Gets Image Spam ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Ninja ~
