Re: Moving Sites

["Michael Kreilmeier" <lists@kreilmeier.at>]

> Stupid Question: I have about 50 web sites and a few hundred e-mail
accounts to move to a new
> server. New IP address, etc... Web sites are no problem, but I do not want
my clients to
> notice any problems with e-mail. They have IMAP available, so many of the
clients store their
> e-mail on the server.
>
> Any ideas on how to move the e-mail accounts seamlessly. I have all their
MX records pointing
> to one address: mail.dailydata.net.
>
> I have rsync'd all the files over, and can do it again whenever, but that
won't work as they
> will be checking their mail on one machine while, I assume, some might be
delivered to the
> other, older server (I was planning on keeping the old server up a few
days in case I screw
> up).
>
> Guess is boils down to this. When I update the address of
mail.dailydata.net, it can take up
> to 72 hours for that change to perculate throughout the net, so I'm
assuming some places will
> still try to send to the old IP and, if I leave that box on, be delivered
to it. If I turn the
> other box off, I'm assuming they will bounce.

You could set the refresh-, retry-, expire- and minimum-values in your
dns-zone-file to low values (at least 72 hours before you change the
mx-entry).
When you choose an expire-value of 2h, your changes will take effect
throughout the net within 2 hours.
I never tried this out, but it works in theory:)

Michael Kreilmeier.