Migration and DNS
 

Howdy,

I am about to move to a new dedicated server in the coming week (my third in 3 years) and I want to avoid the pitfalls that occurred the last time I moved hosts. The last time around I suffered major downtime with my primary domains.

Here is my plan. Please tell me if I am doing this right.

- Lease and set up the new server.
- Install a mirror of the websites on the new server.
- Have the old host point their DNS to my new servers.
- Assign DNS at the new host.
- Change nameserver information with domain registrar.
- Pray I don't have down time and wait the 48-72 propagation.

Am I missing a better step?

(Please don't spam me with hosting offers. I have already reduced my selections down to two possible hosts).

Using that method your site should be accessible the whole time.
However some people will still have your old dns info cached, so they will continue to access your old site for a certain period of time.

This is only a problem if you're collecting info from your members that needs to be accessible on both copies of your site. Consider the following scenario...

Your billing company does background posts into your htpasswd file when you get a new member (ala CCBill, Jettis, iBill NextGen, etc). Since you get a few signups a day your billing company has your old dns info cached. Then a surfer using a new dns server hits your page and gets the new site. They go to join and the
billing company posts the join data to your old site, while the surfer gets redirected back to your new site.

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