Webmaster forum - domain migration

Author

domain migration

Peter Addor

2007-02-16, 6:18 am

I want to migrate a domain from my Linux server to a virtual server
hosted by a provider. On the domain there are some users with their
mailboxes. When I switch the domain to the hosted virtual server there
will be of course some mails in the mailboxes of the users and will be
lost.
Does anyone have experiences in domain migration? How can I migrate
without loosing mails and without that the users will perceive
anything?

Thanks!

Regards,
Peter

2007-02-16, 6:20 pm

>I want to migrate a domain from my Linux server to a virtual server
> hosted by a provider. On the domain there are some users with their
> mailboxes. When I switch the domain to the hosted virtual server there
> will be of course some mails in the mailboxes of the users and will be
> lost.
> Does anyone have experiences in domain migration? How can I migrate
> without loosing mails and without that the users will perceive
> anything?

Depends how your users connect to get their mail (ie do they log-in to
webmail on your server and / or do they get POP/IMAP/etc accounts with you)?
It depends how your currrent configuration is. You need to explain these
details more before people can help you properly.

Peter Addor

2007-02-17, 3:15 am

On 16 Feb., 15:15, <nos...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> Depends how your users connect to get their mail (ie do they log-in to
> webmail on your server and / or do they get POP/IMAP/etc accounts with you)?
> It depends how your currrent configuration is. You need to explain these
> details more before people can help you properly.

Yes, you are right. I'm only speaking of the "standard" situation
where users dowload their messages by a POP3-client. In thi moment you
get a message like this in the maillog (here for Linux):

Feb 16 04:33:35 <server_name> in.qpopper[25088]: (v?) POP login by
user "<user_name>" at (<ip_address> ) <ip_address>

and the mailbox <user_name> in /home/spool/mail will be empty until a
new message arrives and the user downloads it again (normally the
mailclients have a 5 or 10 minutes download periode). A user who gets
many mails has almost never an empty mailbox what makes a migration
hard.

Regards,
Peter

2007-02-19, 6:18 pm

> and the mailbox <user_name> in /home/spool/mail will be empty until a
> new message arrives and the user downloads it again (normally the
> mailclients have a 5 or 10 minutes download periode). A user who gets
> many mails has almost never an empty mailbox what makes a migration
> hard.

OK, so in the POP setup, the users have all the emails on their local
computers, so there's no worries with regards to moving existing emails.

If you really want to, you could keep the mail server running where it is
currently and just move the DNS records for www etc to your new host.

However, if you really do want to move the mail to another server, then your
users will most likely lose some mails in the intermission. When the current
DNS records are deleted, news mails sent will ping around in the ether until
they either time out or when then find the new DNS records and get delivered
to your new host.

So, people sending mails to your users may get an undeliverable return
message or the mail may get delivered to the new address fairly quickly. You
have to factor in DNS propagation which can take up to 48 hours (usually
less).

Your mail users will need to have the new mail servers details in order to
continue receiving their mails. Any mails that were received by your old
mail server which the users didn't log into receive before they switched
over their new mail configuration will need to log in again to your old mail
server or you will need to arrange to have them forwarded or let them log in
with alternative details.

Ken Sims

2007-02-19, 6:18 pm

Hi -

On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 11:30:36 -0000, <nospam@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>However, if you really do want to move the mail to another server, then your
>users will most likely lose some mails in the intermission. When the current
>DNS records are deleted, news mails sent will ping around in the ether until
>they either time out or when then find the new DNS records and get delivered
>to your new host.
>
>So, people sending mails to your users may get an undeliverable return
>message or the mail may get delivered to the new address fairly quickly. You
>have to factor in DNS propagation which can take up to 48 hours (usually
>less).

There's no need to lose any email. Just change the MX records from
the old server to the new server. Any sending server will either get
the old information or the new information. As long as the old server
continues to accept mail until DNS propagation is complete and cached
information is expired, there is no loss of mail, just the issue of
getting it to the new server.

In fact the old server could probably be configured to forward it to
the new server (using an IP address or some other method to prevent
the possibility of it trying to forward the email to itself).

--
Ken
http://www.kensims.net/

Alex

2007-02-20, 3:16 am

"Ken Sims" <ng3122@kensims.#nospam#.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:qfojt259nlqnnq68aib2bdhmihh6oul5us@4ax.com...
> Hi -
>
> On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 11:30:36 -0000, <nospam@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>
> There's no need to lose any email. Just change the MX records from
> the old server to the new server. Any sending server will either get
> the old information or the new information. As long as the old server
> continues to accept mail until DNS propagation is complete and cached
> information is expired, there is no loss of mail, just the issue of
> getting it to the new server.
>
> In fact the old server could probably be configured to forward it to
> the new server (using an IP address or some other method to prevent
> the possibility of it trying to forward the email to itself).
>
> --
> Ken
> http://www.kensims.net/

Another (possibly kludge) fix is to set up temporary forwarders for each of
the POP3 e-mail accounts, directing copies of each user's e-mail either to
their personal ISP addresses, individual Gmail accounts set up for the
purpose, or one central receiver Gmail account for all users. Users would be
encouraged to retrieve their mail frequently (possibly leaving their e-mail
client open and pinging the server every few minutes) during the switchover
period, which ideally would be on a weekend when business e-mail is
relatively light. The POP3 accounts would be set up on the new server, with
the same usernames and passwords. Most messages would be retrieved either
from the original or new server, depending on when the domain name resolves.
If any messages did get missed by their e-mail client, copies of those
messages would have been auto-forwarded to the secondary address. After the
domain name resolves to the new server, the forwarders on the old server
would stop functioning and can be turned off.

Alex