Re: Moving server. DNS re-propogation question

[luci@billfehring.com]

As a suggestion for making this process go as smoothly as possible, I
think you should temporarily move your dns to free dns hosting service 
such as zoneedit.com (5 zone free trial.) Hitting up a friend to host 
your dns for a day or two is also always an option.

While changing the zonefiles, interface and virtual host configuration 
are usually a trivial matter, it sounds as if you've been using this machine 
for an authoritative nameserver which means that you also at some point
registered the nameserver with your registrar. You'll need to register 
your nameserver with the updated IP at your registrar before using it
on the new network.

The procedure goes something like this... You should plan it out like so
on paper.

1) Set up your zonefiles at zoneedit with the IP addresses they have now 
with a much lower ttl (a few minutes is usually alright.)
2) Change your nameservers to zoneedit's nameservers at your registrar
3) Wait like a day for this to propagate, the goal here is to have your 
current information, but with a lower ttl.
4) On the day of the move, change the zoneedit information to match your 
new ip addressing of your new site.
5) Now for the pointless thrill: Grab your server and race to the new
site before your lower-ttl information propagates. Don't let the Internet 
beat you there!
6) Get your interfaces reconfigured, fix httpd.conf if you really need to.
7) Here's the part where you decide... should you really be hosting the
DNS on the same machine you're hosting everything else on? Optionally
you would now update the zones on your local machine, register this
nameserver with the registrar as mentioned above, and start using your
own nameserver again.
8) Again, should you be doing your own DNS? This is always a good
opportunity to make sure you are running the very latest version of 
BIND in a chroot if at all possible.

Regards,

-Bill Fehring

On Sat, May 07, 2005 at 10:21:40AM -0500, Herbie wrote:
> Well here's some semi-noob language, mainly because I only have a
> vague
> understanding of it myself, or at least the DNS part ;)
>
> First of when you update the DNS files, you change the serial,
> increment
> it by one is the normal way, the TTL is Time To Live, how long that
> information should be regarded as reliable.
>
> httpd.conf rarely has IP's in it, usually it has domain names that all
> are
> resolved to the same IP.
>
> You also need to change the IP address on the network interface (I
> assume,
> as you say you are moving IP), ifconfig can be used to make this
> change
> temporarily, but you should use what ever config files or tools are
> relevant to your distro. In debian it's /etc/network/interfaces, in
> Redhat
> it used to be under /etc/sysconfig if memory serves, there's probably
> a
> config tool for it. Tell us your distro, we tell you where to find
> your
> magic tool ;)
>
> After the changes, most should propagate in a few hours, not days,
> normally.
>
> If this is a commercial server, and you have customers, I strongly
> suggest
> you get someone familiar with all these intricacies in to oversee or
> just
> make the changes for you. Lots of linux geeks out there can be had for
> little money for one-off's. If it's your home project, good luck to
> you ;)
>
> herbie
>
> On Fri, 6 May 2005, John Wolgamot wrote:
>
> >My knowledge in this area is limited so please speak to me in
> >semi-noob
> >language.
> >
> >I'm moving a server and everything is remaining the same. The static
> >IP
> >number will be the only change.
> >
> >I'm presuming I can first edit the http.conf and replace the
> >occurrences of
> >the old IP with the new IP.
> >
> >
> >It is my understanding that I also need to change the TTL in the DNS
> >zone
> >files to a different number and resave them. I read somewhere that
> >saving
> >one small change in the zone files will cause the propagation to be
> >set
> >into
> >motion faster. As I said, this is my understanding but I could be
> >very
> >wrong
> >on this. I seem to remember reading this in the past though.
> >
> >
> >After the above changes, the server should come back up in a couple
> >of
> >days??? :-).
> >
> >Will this work, or is there something else I'm missing?
> >
> >I realize I will also have to change the settings in the internet
> >connection
> >dialog as well but I'm more worried about feeling sure that
> >everything
> >concerning DNS and IP is correct so the propagation takes place
> >instead of
> >72 hours later finding out I did something wrong and have to make a
> >change
> >only to wait another 72 hours.
> >
> >In the VAR/named directory there are four files per virtual server:
> >in.rev
> >in.zone
> >out.rev
> >out.zone
> >
> >My out zone file (Partial)
> >--------------------------
> >$TTL 1h
> >@ IN SOA main.example.com. root.example.com. (
> > 10
> > 1h
> > 2h
> > 1w
> > 1h )
> > IN NS main.example.com.
> >
> >
> >Example pulled from the internet(Partial)
> >-----------------------------------------
> >$TTL 86400
> >@     IN     SOA    dns1.example.com.     hostmaster.example.com. (
> >                   2001062501 ; serial
> >                   21600      ; refresh after 6 hours
> >                   3600       ; retry after 1 hour
> >                   604800     ; expire after 1 week
> >                   86400 )    ; minimum TTL of 1 day
> >
> >     IN     NS     dns1.example.com.
> >
> >
> >Thanks ahead,
> >John Wolgamot
> >
> >
> >
> >-
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> >
> >
>
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