Changing hosts without changing Microsoft e-mail servers
March 24, 2011 9:26 AM Subscribe
Question about transferring hosting service without disrupting Microsoft e-mail.
A client wants me to move their hosting from a slow server to Dreamhost. The domain registration will stay the same. What do I need to know about DNS records to make sure I don't interrupt the company's Microsoft Outlook mail?
A client wants me to move their hosting from a slow server to Dreamhost. The domain registration will stay the same. What do I need to know about DNS records to make sure I don't interrupt the company's Microsoft Outlook mail?
Response by poster: Sorry for the unclear post. But thanks for the night-owl timeline--I'm always trying to figure out how this stuff is done without disrupting service.
What's happening is that I'm not moving the mail server. Or at least I don't think I am and want to make sure the change in webhost doesn't do anything to e-mail. After I wrote this question, I realized the domain possessed MX records that point to some third-party mail server.
So those mail records I will not touch. I just plan on moving the website name servers to ns1.dreamhost.com, ns2.dreamhost.com, and so on. I guess I am just looking for possible unforeseen complications, where I accidentally break mail or some other service.
posted by Victorvacendak at 5:52 PM on March 24, 2011
What's happening is that I'm not moving the mail server. Or at least I don't think I am and want to make sure the change in webhost doesn't do anything to e-mail. After I wrote this question, I realized the domain possessed MX records that point to some third-party mail server.
So those mail records I will not touch. I just plan on moving the website name servers to ns1.dreamhost.com, ns2.dreamhost.com, and so on. I guess I am just looking for possible unforeseen complications, where I accidentally break mail or some other service.
posted by Victorvacendak at 5:52 PM on March 24, 2011
Response by poster: To clarify that, I don't intend on moving the mail server. I guess if the MX record stays the same, everything is fine, right?
posted by Victorvacendak at 5:55 PM on March 24, 2011
posted by Victorvacendak at 5:55 PM on March 24, 2011
Ah-ha. I understand you better now.
You have example.com. There's an A record and an MX record for mail.example.com. You want to change the A record for example.com and www.example.com since you want to move your web server to a faster server. You do not want to disrupt any other services in the progress. Yes, if you just change the IP address for the A records for exmaple.com and www.example.com, then the fact that you have an MX record setting the mail server hostname to mail.example.com and an A record for mail.example.com won't be affected (effected?).
Just reconfigure your domain name server config (if you're not running your own name server, you might have your registrar handling that end for you) to change the A records for example.com and www.example.com and over a short period of time, people will start hitting the new web server. You can adjust the TTL in advance to try and speed it up, but it doesn't sound like it's a big deal.
posted by Brian Puccio at 6:57 PM on March 24, 2011
You have example.com. There's an A record and an MX record for mail.example.com. You want to change the A record for example.com and www.example.com since you want to move your web server to a faster server. You do not want to disrupt any other services in the progress. Yes, if you just change the IP address for the A records for exmaple.com and www.example.com, then the fact that you have an MX record setting the mail server hostname to mail.example.com and an A record for mail.example.com won't be affected (effected?).
Just reconfigure your domain name server config (if you're not running your own name server, you might have your registrar handling that end for you) to change the A records for example.com and www.example.com and over a short period of time, people will start hitting the new web server. You can adjust the TTL in advance to try and speed it up, but it doesn't sound like it's a big deal.
posted by Brian Puccio at 6:57 PM on March 24, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
DNS takes time to propogate. Sure, you can mess with settings to try and make it go faster, but really, I wouldn't count on it. I've seen people handle this many different ways. Whenever I move someone's mail server I do the following:
posted by Brian Puccio at 10:26 AM on March 24, 2011