[ale] Preferred domain registrars?

Brandon Checketts brandon at brandonchecketts.com
Thu Jan 21 10:07:04 EST 2010


Ideally, your new DNS provider would allow you to change the TTL of your 
individual records.   In preparation of the move, you can change the TTL down 
down to 1-hour or less.  Do the actual migration at 2 AM to minimize customer 
disruption.

You can probably find some imap-synchronization tools to sync the actual content 
of the mailboxes yourself.  I've allways had shell access to the mail servers, 
so have used rsync.

In the days prior to the migration:
   1- Set up all accounts on the new server
   2- Test, test, test (SMTP, POP3, IMAP, Webmail, with/without authentication, 
with/without SSL/TLS)
   3- Set the TTL of the domain to < 1 hour

Immediately before the migration
   1- Sync the IMAP mailboxes from the old server to the new.

Migration:
   1-  Change DNS to point to the new server
        (Some emails will continue to be pointed to the old server for for the 
length of your TTL x2 or so)
   2-  Test to make sure that the new server is working and that you are 
receiving emails there
   3-  Re-Sync the IMAP messages from the old server (by IP address) to the new 
to catch any mails that are delivered to the old server.


I've used those basic steps to do migrations of 100+ domains with minimal 
disruption to the users.

Thanks,
Brandon Checketts




Björn Gustafsson wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 7:45 AM, Geoffrey <lists at serioustechnology.com> wrote:
>> James Sumners wrote:
>>> Which will be very annoying when your hosting provider turns into
>>> garbage and you want to flee. Then you get to pay twice as much for
>>> the same domain because you have to pay a transfer fee on top of the
>>> registration fee you have already paid.
>>>
>>> I got to do that this morning :(
>> I'm using 1and1 and I will say, I'm looking to move.  Downloading email
>> is slow, very slow.  I've got clients who complain about the webmail
>> interface.
>>
>> So, I'm looking for some insights.  Say I have a domain that has 20
>> email addresses associated with it.  If I transfer the domain, won't
>> those email addresses bounce until such time I set them up on the new
>> server?  I am having 1and1 host the email and websites.
>>
>> Further, how does one go about hosting on a different provider?  I'm
>> assuming folks are registering one provider and hosting email and web on
>> another?
> 
> I did that last year, and it's pretty easy when your registrar and
> hosting provider are separate. :)
> 
> What I did was, I first set up the account with the new hosting
> provider, added all the domains, email accounts and forwards, and then
> simply changed my primary/secondary DNS servers with my registrar to
> point at the new hosting provider's servers.  During the transition
> while the DNS is expiring, emails will end up in two places, but with
> a TTL of less than 24 hours that transitional time will last no more
> than 48 hours in the worst case.  Then you move emails from the old
> domain to the new one (you may have to reference the old mail server
> by IP address).
> 
> In the case where you run your own DNS servers (or use the ones from
> the registrar) the steps are pretty similar, but you'll have to point
> your hostnames to the new IP addresses last, after you've done all the
> email setup and copying website content.
> 
> If you have to change registrars first, that part will take 2-3 weeks
> to complete.  I would say to plan on a month for that activity.
> 



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